How Destinations Leverage eCommerce

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How Destinations Leverage eCommerce

• Moderator
• Doug Price, DMAI
• Panelists
• Caroline Beteta, California Tourism
• Bonnie Carlson, Bloomington MN CVB
• Mathilda Sheptak, Pocono Mountains Vacation
  Bureau, Inc.
• Binod Taterway, Blue Canopy Group
• Jens Thraenhart, Canadian Tourism Commission

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• Bonnie CarlsonPresident CEOBloomington MN
• Convention Visitors Bureau

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• Located between Minneapolis St. Paul
• Door Step of MSP International Airport
• 34 Hotels 7,500 Hotel Rooms (2,500)
• Home of Mall of America
• New Indoor Water Park 400 Room Hotel

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• One of Most Visited Tourist Attractions in the
  United States
• 520 Stores 50 Restaurants 4.2 m sq. ft.
• Largest Indoor Amusement Park with
• 30 Rides
• Under Water Adventures Aquarium
• Phase II Additional 5.2 m sq. ft.

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Marketing Partnership - MOA

• Maximize MOA Brand, while maintaining
  Bloomingtons Identity
• Advertising, Online Promotions, Trade Shows
  Website Presence
• Contract with Call Center Combined Visitor
  Fulfillment Data Management
• Key Website Presence Links Crucial Reciprocal

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Destination Bloomington www.bloomingtonmn.org

• Ease of Navigation has worked for us

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Accommodations Marketing

• Online Accommodations Marketing Program
• Pay to Play for position on
• Accommodations page Three Tiers
• Level determines presence in online marketing
  campaigns
• 15,000 (2) 10,0000 (5) 2,500 Links

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Destination BloomingtonAccommodations page
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Award Vacation Packages

• Package includes hotel, attractions, bonus gift
  and coupon book consumer builds their own
  itinerary
• Soon to come
• The Big Ticket!

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Lessons learned through the years

• Importance and Value of Interactive Travel
  Marketing Agency
• Their guidance, expertise and strengths, plus
  integrating with Traditional Advertising Agency
• Mall of America
• Cant always control 800 pound gorilla (Mall of
  America)
• Education and Trends Keeping Up
• Take Chances/Risks Theyve Paid Off

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• Mathilda Sheptak Deputy Executive Director
• Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau, Inc.
• Binod Taterway
• CEO
• Blue Canopy Group

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Pocono MountainsFast Facts

• Tourism numbers
• Over 1.2 billion in travel expenditures.
• Number of properties
• Over 150 lodging properties and growing
• Over 6,000 rooms and growing
• Mega growth
• Within 2 ½ hr drive over 35 million people. New
  spa resorts, new indoor water park resorts, new
  gaming resorts, new convention/conference
  facilities.
• PMVB Vision
• Increase overnight stays, increase occupancy,
  increase RevPar

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Our Challenges

• Serving the needs of the broad categories of
  member properties from BBs, motels to hotel
  chains and destination resorts
• Establishing travel agency relationship with
  member properties while maintaining CVBs core
  objectives
• Enriching 800Poconos site to promote touring on
  behalf of all member properties
• Efficient distribution of 150 and growing
  properties to all channels where travelers come
• Migrating from just simple product representation
  in current solutions to packages and complete
  itinerary management for members

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PMVB Solution

• Facilitating eCommerce on behalf of its members
• Establishing a Local Distribution model to
  aggregate room inventory
• Establishing a platform to promote travel
  distribution
• Integrating members business processes with CVBs
  business for customer acquisition, retention, and
  expansion
• Operating as a marketing partner and transaction
  aggregator
• Improving simple product representation to
  complex packages that destination travelers need
• Establishing basic eCommerce capabilities for
  free for all properties regardless of size and
  revenue
• Establishing OTA Compliant travel distribution
  technology for all members to link their systems
  to 800Poconos and access their information via
  Internet

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PMVB Solution
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PMVB Roadmap
Phase 1 Basic Booking
Phase 2 Integrated Booking
Phase 3 Packages, Attractions, Etc.
Phase 4 Event Planning, Golf, Spa, etc.
Basic booking function that operates against
inventory in 800Poconos (Local) and GDS/IDS
Integration with hotel websites (IBE) and/or
hotel PMS for seamless booking and automatic
inventory adjustments
Dynamic packaging and bundling attractions,
vacation getaways, and complete itinerary
management
Activity booking functionality including Golf,
Spa, Restaurants, and Events
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Benefits to Members
We address the needs to all member properties
from motels, country inns, to resorts and major
chains so they do not need a point solution
Free Basic Booking
Members inventory is not locked into a
proprietary system they can distribute their
inventory to unlimited number of channels
Onward Distribution
They get a complete solution that includes
booking with GDS/IDS systems, dynamic packaging,
and golf/spa/restaurant reservations
Full Service Dynamic Pkg
800Poconos solution is focused on embedding
transactional features within a seamless user
experience on behalf of its members
User Experience
They can integrate their Property Management
System (PMS) to 800Poconos, eliminating the need
to manually upload
PMS Integration
They can use PMVB as a marketing channel to drive
traffic to their website and their Internet
Booking Engine (IBE)
IBE Integration
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• Jens ThraenhartExecutive Director, Marketing
  StrategyCanadian Tourism Commission

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Why Websites Matter
A company that neglects its website may be
committing commercial suicide. A website is
increasingly becoming the gateway to a companys
brand, product and services. A useless website
suggests a useless company. A website with
outdated content suggests an outdated company. A
company without a high ranking on the major
search engines suggests no web presence at all.
The Economist, May 2004 E-Commerce takes off
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• Phase 1 Foundation(Web Infrastructure)
• Phase 2 Building(Static Websites)
• Phase 3 Experience(Interactive Relationships)

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The e-path to customer relationships
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CENTRALIZED CANADA.TRAVEL PORTAL STRATEGY
WWW.CANADA.TRAVEL
TA
CONSUMER
BUSINESS
MEDIA
MCIT
CTC
Destination Content Management Database
Customer Relationship Management Database
Digital Asset Management Database
Tourism Product Management Database
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