1. our visitors’ digital journey Malcolm Roughead OBE, Chief Executive, visitscotland

2. TODAY The travel landscape
HOW DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY has CHANGED THE WAY WE MARKET SCOTLAND?
What does it mean for BUSINESSES looking to attract visitors?

3. NOISY CONSUMER MARKETPLACE RISE OF NEW DESTINATIONS
COMPETITIVENESS
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
RISE OF NEW DESTINATIONS
Noisy consumer market place;
Consumers are exposed to over 1000 ads a day
Cost of consumer attention has increased by %
It’s just not possible for us to compete with our marketing budgets
Rise of new destinations
Tourism worldwide predicted to grow at a rate of 3-4% per annum up to 2030
As a result, industry and govts around the world are investing in tourism to capatilise
More accessible. Emerging economies growing rapidly
Changing consumer behaviour
>half of the 20m sessions on VS.com are now on a mobile device
Over 1 million referrals from VS.com last year
64% of resulting bookings are taken online
But only a third of VS listings are online transactable
If you’re not mobile ready, you’re missing out on £ms of business
Competitiveness
Strength of the £ and cost of getting to Scotland
Not everyone is price senstive but this will be a barrier for some
MARKET CONTEXT

4. “The internet is as essential for inspiring new travel as it is for planning travel.”
Source: Google Traveler Study Nov (Ipsos MediaCT/Google Travel Study, May–June 2013)
The role of the internet in travel

5. Google Travel Infographic: How Mobile Shapes the Customer Journey:
Search is key throughout the user consideration, planning, booking & on-arrival journey
Mobile Search behaviour

6. WE ARE ALL SHARING – the importance of advocacy
This image signifies real change;
65% of adults now use social media – tenfold jump in ten years
Visitors will market our destination for us
Curating visitors’ stories is as important as selling our own
Brands now help facilitate sharing
Just pushing our broadcasting marketing messages isn’t enough
WE ARE ALL SHARING – the importance of advocacy

7. USER GENERATED CONTENT
BRAND MARKETING & CRM
CONTENT PARTNERSHIPS
USER GENERATED CONTENT
PROMOTION
PAID
EXPERIENCE
EARNED
The media landscape has changed dramatically
Consumer consumption has overtaken/gone ahead of brand execution
We must create and curate stories to earn attention
TV ads, posters and press is just one part of the mix;
Advocacy is the most efficient and effective form of marketing
Real content by real people is powerful
Especially if they get behind the brand narrative
THIS REQUIRES A DIFFERENT APpROACh

8. CONSUMER TRAVEL BRANDS
Bow fiddle rock, moray
CONSUMER TRAVEL BRANDS
INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Broadcast media VS
Trade
VS.com is one channel, an important one with 20m visits
But we are one small part of a massive marketing machine
Huge consumer brands dominate with huge spend
We cannot play that game
BUT the big challenge is to be part of the internet

9. CONSUMER TRAVEL BRANDS
Bow fiddle rock, moray
CONSUMER TRAVEL BRANDS
INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Broadcast media VS
Trade
WHERE OUR ‘DISCOVERY STRATEGY’ WILL EARN GOOGLE’S LOVE

10. Discovery strategy: CONSUMER driven
ANALYSE SEARCHING HABITS IN EVERY CORE MARKET, ACROSS CATEGORIES
IDENTIFY WHERE WE CAN EFFICIENTLY DRIVE NEW VISITORS TO SCOTLAND
CREATE AND DISTRIBUTE THAT CONTENT WITH PARTNERS AND INDUSTRY
We understand consumer discovery behaviour – facts
Data centric approach is critical to competitive advantage
Discovery strategy: CONSUMER driven

11. MAKING SCOTLAND DISCOVERABLE
High cost & competition
low cost & risk
low probability of conversion
high probability of conversion
Uk holidays
Holidays in scotland
Arbroath abbey
MAKING SCOTLAND DISCOVERABLE

12. WE LET Partners DO THE HEAVY LIFTING
High cost & competition
low cost & risk
low probability of conversion
high probability of conversion
Uk holidays
27,100
Figures in yellow bar = Global Monthly Searches
When considering high volume search terms, if VisitScotland wanted to capture this audience they would either have to invest a significant amount of budget to pay for advertising space with Google, or generate huge volumes of content to be organically selected as a search result for that term – neither of which they have the resource for.
To reach this audience efficiently, VisitScotland are looking to partner with those who are already credible and trusted by consumers in this territory. Essentially they are borrowing the equity of the content and media brands who naturally pull this traffic.
The key is to go to the places where consumers already are and to filter content through these media owners.
VisitScotland has achieved this with TripAdvisor, where they’ve effectively taken over their real estate by creating a destination landing page for Scotland.
This is significant because it ensures Scotland has the right quality of content on this hugely influential platform, which is essentially acting as an extension of the VisitScotland website.
It’s partnerships like this that help us infiltrate these high volume search terms.
WE LET Partners DO THE HEAVY LIFTING

13. VISITSCOTLAND FOCUS Figures in yellow bar = Global Monthly Searches
High cost & competition
low cost & risk
low probability of conversion
high probability of conversion
Things to do in scotland
8,100
Figures in yellow bar = Global Monthly Searches
When VisitScotland has a specific role to play is when people are of the mind-set that they may want to come to Scotland – and this is when VisitScotland will capture this audience through the national brand via great quality content (to help move consumers from a point of consideration to conversion).
VISITSCOTLAND FOCUS

14. The industry Industry focus
High cost & competition
low cost & risk
low probability of conversion
high probability of conversion
The industry
Arbroath abbey
1,900
Figures in yellow bar = Global Monthly Searches
When moving further down the search curve, looking at specific terms or products such as Arbroath Abbey, this is when we as an industry have to play a role.
The key to becoming part of the internet is ensuring we are all creating and curating quality, local content to not only feature on our own channels but which can also be shared with VisitScotland so that we’re continually creating and contributing to a fresh bank of engaging content, which will help enhance our presence on large influencer content and media brand sites which dominate the digital landscape.
Industry focus

15. AND WORK LOCALLY TO CONVERT TO SALE
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE
LOCAL CONTENT
LOCAL INFORMATION & ADVICE
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
DESTINATION AWARENESS
NEW LEADS & REFERRALS
PLATFORMS TO ENABLE ENGAGEMENT
SPIRIT GROWTH FUND
But embracing these opportunities requires a different approach.
When looking back to marketing as it was years ago, it was something you paid for (top yellow circle – brand marketing) – essentially you were screaming at people to buy your product in the hope that someone was listening and that they would take action as a result. Which is incredibly expensive and inefficient.
Because of the advent of the internet and digital we’re now afforded the opportunity to use partnerships and all the content generated by visitors and citizens of Scotland to our advantage. We can now curate this content and push it out so that we’re not having to pay for everything but we’re still creating great experiences for our consumers, and we’ll see a much better return on our collective investment as a result.
To do this, we need to focus our time and effort much more below this line (dotted line in slide) on user generated content and content partnerships, which will much more readily encourage advocacy.
AND WORK LOCALLY TO CONVERT TO SALE

16. DISTRIBUTING AN INVALUBALE CURRENCY

17. VALUE COMES FROM THOSE ‘IN THE KNOW’

18. SCOTLAND’S TOURISM COMMUNITY
FACE TO FACE
PUBLIC / PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP
ONLINE
PEER TO PEER ENGAGEMENT
WE EMPOWER THOSE ‘IN THE KNOW’

19. Scotland's virtual reality app
Our new app, ScotlandVR is a virtual reality travel experience that allows the consumer, wherever they are in the world, to be immersed in Scotland’s remarkable attractions through stunning 360° video & photographs. Step aboard Discovery, walk through the pre-historic village of Skara Brae, soar above the Forth Bridge UNESCO site, travel through The Hollow Mountain of Ben Cruachan, discover impressively designed museums including Riverside, and get a unique perspective of our engineering feats like Glenfinnan Viaduct and the Falkirk Wheel.
How did it come about?
We wanted to create an innovative product in the Year of Innovation, Architecture & Design that promoted both the 2016 & 2017 themed years but was also a platform that will sustain for years to come and will take on refreshed content.
This was the result of a collaborative effort and pioneering spirit of Scottish academic, technology and tourism sectors, through a competition and mentoring process that led to our virtual reality app.
Making a choice of holiday destination is largely based on emotion, and giving someone a virtual reality experience of the Spirit of Scotland will encourage them to come and experience it for themselves. The way that visitors access information about Scotland has changed dramatically and our ambition is to reach more people with more information through more innovative channels.
Since our media launch at the end of February and we have seen 20,000 installs of our app. Comparing that to some other tourism destination VR apps on the market, they haven’t reached that level of installs after being live for a year. Not only that but Apple themselves have chosen our app to be part of their ‘Hot this week’ listings this week which will massively increase the visibility of our app on the store and should result in a spike of installs.
Scotland's virtual reality app

20. an integrated, multi –channel Campaign
V&A Museum of Design Dundee
Digital PR
Paid – Social, Search & Video
Organic Social
Community – Related threads
Partner
Activity
Trip Planner – Sample Itineraries
UGC
Blogposts
Web articles
video
Content
50%
Promotion
50%
Aim to develop multi-channel, multi-touchpoint customer journeys
The future campaign

21. THE ESSENTIALS TO GROW YOUR TOURISM BUSINESS
A GREAT WEBSITE
Get GOOGLE TO LOVE YOU
MANAGE YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION
BE SOCIABLE
Den, Tina and Liz running digital one-to-ones with businesses after the conferences.
THE ESSENTIALS TO GROW YOUR TOURISM BUSINESS

22. Thank you Thank you @visitscotnews #SCOTSPIRIT
Thank you
@visitscotnews
#SCOTSPIRIT
Digital - what’s not to love!