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| Sustainable Transport for Tourism Wales (STTW): 1996-2001 |
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| Public Transport Tourism Mapping; Sian Thomas |
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| 1. Click |
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| Bore Da, Good Morning. My name's Sian Thomas and I'm privileged to be working with This Week Media Network in areas of sustainable tourism development that embrace culture and the environment. Contrary to what the title of this presentation may suggest, I'm not here to talk about mapping but rather how mapping can be used to market Wales, give consumers greater access to product, and generate new income streams for tourism businesses. First, though, to see more clearly where the opportunities lie, let's look at tourism in the broad sense of cultural exchange and the markets that spring from that - what I've referred to in other presentations as the sizzle not the sausage, to borrow Jim and Terry's phrase. |
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2. Tourism; The Sizzle |
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| Events, entertainment, food and drink, restaurants and pubs, shops, arts and crafts, local services, transport, books, maps & guides are all part of the broader picture. They all have the capacity to turn an ordinary visit into a truly memorable one and to increase visitor expenditure in favour of a destination. |
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3. Information Research; Visitors Need for Information Peaks on Arrival |
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| But given that research has shown time and again that visitors' need for information on all these aspects peaks on arrival or shortly afterwards - the tourism industry continues to approach the challenge in a rather primitive fashion wielding little more than a stone axe. It's worthy sometimes of a 'Carry On Tourism' Ealing comedy. We even place impositions on our guests in their quest for information. A trip to a TIC, for example, is an imposition - more so when the so-called 'centre' is miles away and the liquid sunshine's in horizontal mode. It's a disposition, too, because when visitors are in a TIC they're not out doing what they came to do including spending their money with tourism businesses. In fact, I'd go a step further by suggesting that most visits to TICs are distress visits resulting from information simply not being available in a more convenient place for visitors to consume at their leisure. I'd then like to be downright provocative by saying that in this day and age with all the technology that's available to us, most TICs, along with the Bedroom Browser and Morse code, have become an anachronism. If you don't believe this, in your heart of hearts, then the next spaceship back to Mars leaves in five minutes! |
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| 4. Wales in a Time Warp; Management v Marketing |
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| It could be said, in fact, that Wales is in something of time warp. It has still to work out the difference between management and marketing. Resistance to change has been endemic in organisations whose job it was to manage change, and risk aversion coupled with a reluctance to innovate has stood in the way of Wales realising its full tourism potential. You only need look at our 1.4% share in value of overseas tourism to the UK to realise that something's got stuck in the grinder somewhere. The much-heralded DMS will provide some of the answers but it won't be the panacea people have been led to expect. I think that has now been realised and quietly accepted. Was it to be a Destination Management System or a Destination Marketing System? It could never have been both. Remember the famous observation from that great marketing guru Tom Peters. 'Managers do things right. Marketers do the right thing.' In other words, managers are good at climbing ladders, marketers make sure the ladders are up against the right walls. I rest my case on that one. |
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| 5. Tourism at the Macro Level; Excellent Job |
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| This isn't a tilt at the Wales Tourist Board. Far from it. As an Assembly-sponsored body with limited resource, the Board deals with tourism at the macro level and does an excellent job. It produces award-winning marketing campaigns, and there's little you cannot turn to it for in the way of quality research information, sound advice on tourism trends and in-depth product development. But, and here I quote Gill Berntsen, Head of UK Marketing at the Wales Tourist Board, 'WTB does not get under the skin of the macro'. |
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| 6. Tourism at the Micro Level; Host Communities and Tourism Businesses |
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| Nor should it. Tourism, or at least the on-the-ground visitor experience - the micro end of the business, is in the hands of host communities and tourism businesses in their midst, not government. So if anyone is to help visitors get under the skin of the macro it's the communities and tourism businesses themselves. So how do we tackle this? A year or so ago, STTW coined the phrase 'You cannot have integrated transport without integrated information', adopted since by the National Assembly for Wales in its Public Transport Review. I'd like to extend that thought to 'integrated tourism'. It's a linear versus spatial thing. Visitors can either gather information as they go (sequential learning), by which time it's often too late to put the knowledge to use, or they can become part of a learning network with tools to help them gather whatever information they need whenever they need it. As we shall see later, every tourism business in the land has the capacity to become both a real and a virtual learning centre for visitors. We shall also see how maps with their innate spatial characteristics have an essential part to play in this process and how intelligent maps are creating new learning opportunities for visitors and new earning opportunities for host communities and tourism businesses. |
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| 7. This Week Wales; The National Tourism Newspaper of Wales |
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| Where does This Week fit into the picture? Like all publishers, we empower people to say what they want to say to an audience larger than they would ordinarily attract for themselves. Also, as a publisher whose resource is focused entirely on the information needs of visitors, we are a fixed part of the tourism economy. Over 6 million copies of This Week have been read by an estimated 15 million visitors to Wales. |
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| 8. 'Go for a Walk on Beacons Bus' |
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| This Week featured continuously throughout Phases 1 and 2 of the Sustainable Transport Tourism Wales campaign, promoting the use of public transport in conjunction with activities such as walking and visits to attractions. In this example a front page lead article entitled 'Go for a Walk on Beacons Bus' described how a series of five linear walks could become circular ones, by visitors using the bus to return safely to their cars! |
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| 9. 'Walk 1 of 5: The Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal' |
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| Well-written articles with maps to hand then 'sold' the individual walks. |
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| 10. 'Wales' £45m Millennium Dome' |
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| Every opportunity was taken to promote public transport as part of the total visit experience. Maps provided the all-important link and encouraged major attractions like the National Botanic Garden of Wales to enter into the spirit of the campaign. |
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| 11. 'The Flexible Travelling Companion' |
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| The Freedom of Wales Flexipass featured throughout in over 1 million copies, not only as a ticket that gives excellent access to new and positive experiences rarely encountered by car travellers, but as a 'buy-in' product that encapsulates the overall concept perfectly. |
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| 12. 'South West Wales' |
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| Use of maps enables readers to navigate and gain more information from descriptive content than any other device. In the context of tourism and travel they add a spatial dimension to the written word like no other image can. So why haven't we made better use of maps in the past? Why haven't we taken our cue from the research that has told us constantly that maps are top of the list of items purchased by visitors? The reasons find just about everyone at fault but a series of actions over recent years have righted a number of wrongs and provided fresh impetus. What's more, technology has enabled maps to move from two-dimensional to multi-dimensional information tools, with huge implications for tourism marketing and communications. |
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| 13. 'Two Dimensional Map' |
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| Imagine taking two-dimensional maps, as we know them, being able to enter them at any point, wander around from place to place at will, and have information available at every juncture. |
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| 14. 'Chronological Map; Calendar' |
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| Imagine being able to do the same with chronological maps (or calendars as they're better known), being able to enter anywhere, move around in time from place to place, and gain information on anything in view. |
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| 15. Wales Calendar; Pan-Wales Coverage.1 |
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| In the same way that a geographic map of Wales has essentially Welsh content, so too must a Calendar of Wales. Bank holidays, school holidays, special Welsh dates, major events and festivals, major sporting events, agricultural shows, arts events, business events, and local community events. All of these must be mapped out in the calendar if it's to work properly. |
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| 16. Wales Calendar; Pan-Wales Coverage.2 |
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| Combine these two powerful interfaces somehow and you have everything that a visitor could quite literally ask for. Add in a bit of editorial acclaim to whet the appetite, place all elements in an e-commerce environment, show the dinosaurs the door, and you have a complete up-to-date map-based marketing solution. |
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| 17. 'Suite of Online Products' |
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| Voila! |
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| 18. 'Accommodation Microsite' |
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| Through this we have been able to empower individual tourism businesses to engage with worldwide audiences on their own terms, move into an e-commerce environment, and profit from new enterprise in the during- and post-visit markets. Individual operators have their own Microsites. This is how one looks to anyone visiting WalesCalendar.com who has looked for a place to stay in August in the neighbourhood of, say, the Faenol Festival. Embedded in the Microsite is an intelligent map, which can be interrogated using the information channels shown top right. |
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| 19. Microsites; Accommodation |
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| These channels deliver information on what's available in the neighbourhood of the Microsite owner by way of Attractions, Events, Entertainment, Restaurants, Pubs, Shops (including craft outlets), Local Services and Transport. The last channel - Maps - provides a choice of books, maps and guides of the immediate area and of Wales, which can be browsed and purchased direct from the Microsite, giving the owner a revenue share and pushing more information on Wales out into the marketplace. Other of the channels also offer commercial opportunities for Microsite owners. The Attractions channel can be used to effect sales of Cadw's 'Explorer Pass' for example; the Events and Entertainment channels can be used to book tickets, and, of course, there's no reason why the Transport channel shouldn't result in sales of the Freedom of Wales Flexipass. Microsite owners are set to become increasingly important online sales outlets for tourism- and travel-related products. |
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| 20. Information Channels; Transport |
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| The Transport channel when activated will give information on buses and trains, taxis, cycle routes, and interchanges. It will provide route planning and travel corridor information, and access to tickets like the Freedom of Wales Flexipass and a Wales Travel Pass of the future. Clicking on the Transport information channel will also change the Microsite map from the... |
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| 21. 'Microsite Road Map' |
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| ... drivers' road map... |
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| 22. 'Microsite Public Transport Map' |
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| ... to a public transport map. |
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| 23. 'This Week Interactive/1' |
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| Editorial coverage is provided offline in the UK by This Week and online via This Week Interactive, reaching global markets. The Autumn interactive edition, for example, carried an article commissioned by Central Trains entitled 'My Escape to the Cambrian Coast' by Big Brother star Craig Phillips, and an item under Other Features entitled Rail and Bus Routes, featuring the Freedom of Wales Flexipass. Clicking on the Craig Phillips article in the Contents moves the screen down to.... |
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| 24. 'This Week Interactive/2' |
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| ...the opening paragraph of the article to whet the reader's appetite, and a clickable "Read On" link takes readers to… |
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| 25. 'This Week Interactive/3' |
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| ...the full article featuring the countryside that the train passes through. The images can be made clickable to produce information on Attractions, Events and Accommodation in the featured areas. |
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| 26. 'This Week Interactive/4' |
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| Same with the Flexipass feature. This time with 'Flexi Pass' in the text and the Ticket image on the right clickable direct through to the Wales Flexipass website… |
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| 27. 'This Week Interactive/5' |
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| ...along with the www.walesflexipass.com web address at the end of the feature. |
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| 28. 'Page Statistics' |
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| Being in touch with this new online market is vital in order to take full advantage of its growth. Every This Week Interactive edition page view is captured so that the effectiveness of each feature can be analysed and value judgements made. This Page View Analysis for the October issue was collected in real time and helped us develop the content for the Christmas issue. We know for example that an article entitled 'Experience the Taste of Wales' with 133 unique hits came a narrow second to a 'Christmas in Wales' feature with 153. Together with earlier analysis, this told us that there was likely to be a market for Christmas breaks in Wales, with an emphasis on fine food and wine linked to cultural events. We're already working on that for Christmas this year! |
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| 29. 'Our Audience is Your Audience' |
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| In March last year we began the task of segmenting all email addresses on the Wales Tourist Board's UK Domestic Marketing database. An Online Panel of some 2,500 members was assembled, 900 of which responded within 10 days to the first online questionnaire. The results were startling. After Walking and Hiking, which accounted for 15% of interest expressed, a string of cultural activities accounted for 61% of interest, followed by a string of physical activities which between them accounted for just 18%. This not only reflected the ageing population but also sent a strong message through to the product development team at the Wales Tourist Board who had been sitting on this information without realising it. The pie-chart on the right shows that 84% of respondents that had visited Wales before had done so with a partner or as a family member, possibly reinforcing the ageing population message. |
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| 30. 'Accommodation Microsite' |
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| Our advance - Wales' advance - in intelligent mapping for tourism has borne some unexpected dividends. LondonTown.com, with whom we are associated, boasts the most-visited destination website in the world. They have 600,000 unique visits a month to their site, bookings per month of £1.3 million, and a consent-based email list of 350,000 recipients against our current list of 40,000. I am delighted to say, however, that we are streaks ahead of them on the mapping side and have been able to negotiate a deal to joint market Wales with London. When you consider that London has a 58% share of overseas visitors to Britain measured in terms of expenditure, just think what this will mean for sustainable transport products like the Freedom of Wales Flexi Pass and the newly-anticipated Wales Travel Pass. As I said, I wasn't here today to talk to you about mapping but how mapping can be used to market Wales; give consumers greater access to product, and generate new income streams for tourism businesses!! I hope I've been able to demonstrate that. And finally, just in case any of you are in any doubt about the future... |
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| 31. 'This Week Interactive/5' |
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| …just take a look at these up-to-date statistics: 75% (45 million) of UK residents are now online, 513 million people are online worldwide, access by gender and age group has evened out, Internet users spent 13% of their holiday budget online last Christmas according to Nielsen/NetRatings, and online holiday bookings are set to increase by a phenomenal 625% by the year 2005. |
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| 32. This Week Media Network |
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| I would be pleased to take any questions. |
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| Question & Answer Session |
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| Mick Bates AM: How are you implementing the scheme? |
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| The scheme is being implemented at grass-root level via organisations such as Taste of Wales/Blas ar Gymru, Fforwm Crefft Cymru and Gwyliau Cymru/Festivals of Wales. There are strong links too with Leader groups across Wales via the Wales Rural Forum and we have started work more recently with the Menter Iaith network in Wales in order to engage host communities more fully. Further questions were raised and answered during the Conference Open Forum in the afternoon. These will form part of the report summarising the Conference and its conclusions, which will be circulated to all delegates in due course. Campaign Background and Key Achievements; Colin Speakman Mission Statement/Terms of Reference Phase 3; Draft Project Portfolio |
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