COURTENAY – Tourism Vancouver Island, in partnership with Island and Sunshine Coast Destination Marketing Organizations, are launching a project to track key tourism data at a local level. The project is intended to improve awareness and increase economic activity driven by visitor spending.
Funding from the Island Coastal Economic Trust (ICET) will support the development of a common tourism data management and analysis system, which will facilitate regional data aggregation and comparison. Approximately a dozen regional destination marketing organizations are expected to participate, covering most major tourism destinations in the Island and Coastal region.
Calum Matthews, Community and Industry Specialist at Tourism Vancouver Island, says accurate performance metrics are crucial to data-driven decision making. The project will help front-line tourism marketers get a clear understanding of three key performance indicators for their regions, including awareness, desirability, and Net Promoter Score: the likelihood of recommending a destination.
The project will track and present these performance indicators in a collaborative, reliable, repeatable way so that the marketing organizations can adapt and evolve their marketing activities to meet the requirements of their target audiences.
Since the majority of visitors to the Island and the Sunshine Coast spend time in multiple communities, taking part in many different activities, ICET Chair Phil Kent said it is important to have a collaborative approach to give communities a broader perspective of visitor behaviour. This will increase opportunities for joint product development and marketing approaches.
The project will begin with gathering data on the three key performance indicators by surveying BC and Alberta residents. BC and Alberta are the primary target markets for Vancouver Island and Sunshine Coast tourism.
Funding for the project is provided through ICET’s Economic Development Readiness Program – Regional Collaboration stream. This program stream is designed to support collaborative initiatives which enable communities or organizations to use resources more efficiently.
The Island Coastal Economic Trust is providing up to $12,000 of the total budget of $24,000. Project launch is anticipated for early in the new year, with expected completion by March, 2018.