Tmi 091012

The Learning Destination: Developing productive
relationships between higher education and
destination management

Dr Phil Long, Dr Philip Alford, Dr Debbie Sadd, and Lisa Ashurst
School of Tourism, Bournemouth University

Anthony Climpson, New Forest Tourism
Graham Richardson, Poole Tourism
Mark Smith, Bournemouth Tourism
www.bournemouth.ac.uk

Relationships between universities and
destination management: observations
and opportunities
• Need for critical reflection on professional practice (in
both universities and destination management!)
• Some academic research is of direct relevance to
professional practice and development
• Some academic research is (or perhaps should be) of
interest to practitioners
• Academics are increasingly required to ‘engage’ with our
sectors
• Funding opportunities exist…………

www.bournemouth.ac.uk 2

School of Tourism
Events, Hospitality, Leisure, Retail, Sport & Tourism

Bournemouth University
 Approx. 18000 students, 1600
international students from 130
countries
 Six Schools
 England’s Best New University –
2009; 2010 (The Guardian League
Tables)
 Significant Period of Investment in
Buildings and People
 Ambitious Research & Enterprise
Agenda for 2012 and Beyond
www.bournemouth.ac.uk/business-services
www.bournemouth.ac.uk/tourism

School of Tourism

School of Tourism
 Budget 2012-13: c£16m (R & E income c£1.2m)
 Over 100 Staff (77 Academics, high % Professorial)
 1500 Undergraduate Students; 200 Postgraduate Students
 45 PhD Students
 Strong international profile – students, staff and partners


School of Tourism

Indicators of quality
• Rated “excellent” by the QAA
• Research of national and international excellence
(RAE / REF)
• Strong graduate employment rates
• High application rates
• UNWTO accreditation
• TMI recognition of BA (Hons) Tourism Management
and MSc Destination Marketing and Management

School of Tourism

Research Centres


School of Tourism

Tourism Research Expertise includes:
Tourism Development and Planning

Economic and Econometric Impact Modelling

Tourism Sector Management, Marketing and e-Tourism

Destination Management and Marketing

Sustainable Development and Tourism

Employment, Human Resources, and Education in tourism

Health, well-being and social tourism


School of Tourism

Tourism Research Projects include:
Accessibility and Tourism

Wildlife and Eco Tourism

‘Slow Travel’ and ‘well-being’

Tourism, Climate Change, Crises and Disaster Management

Generational Change and Patterns of Consumer Behaviour

Managing World Heritage Sites

Real Ale Tourism

School of Tourism

Recent Staff Publications:


School of Tourism

Journals Edited in the School include:


School of Tourism, Bournemouth
University: Partners and networks

• Tourism Management Institute
• England Tourism Research and Intelligence Partnership
• International Festivals and Events Association
• WTO / UNESCO / UNEP
• ATLAS (Association for Tourism and Leisure Education)
• European Union of Tourism Officers
• …….


Funding relationships between destination
management and higher education: The
Bournemouth case

Acronyms explained:

•NTBA
•HEIF funded DDP (inc. DIF,DIG, FAME)
•ESRC / AHRC
•NCTA


The Impetus

• Regional Growth Fund application to fund the
development of the UK’s first National Tourism
Business Academy (NTBA)

• Driven by private business
• Guided by academics
• Supported by destination management
professionals


The NTBA concept

Aimed to:
• Offer ‘blended learning’ to support tourism businesses

• Pioneer the formation of a whole destination as a shared
learning resource

• Improve business performance for Bournemouth, Poole and the
New Forest tourism sector

• Be fully operational as a national tourism business resource
from 2013

Disappointment!

• Regional Growth Fund bid rejected …..

• BUT ….

• Funding secured from Higher Education Innovation
Fund (HEIF) for The Destination Development
Programme (DDP)


The Destination Development Programme:
Working Towards a National Tourism
Business Academy

• By 2015 Bournemouth University will be the pre-eminent
institution for the study of tourist destinations in the UK and
overseas and the home of a “state of the art” knowledge
exchange to facilitate research, study, employer engagement,
professional development and networking for all destination
stakeholders.


Destination Development Programme

• Research Frameworks
• Destination Intelligence Framework (DIF)
• Framework for the Assessment of Major Events (FAME)
• Destination Innovations Group (DIG)

• Profile and Reputation

• Integrated Bidding

• New Venture Development


Destination Development Programme:
Objectives

• To develop an exemplary model of destination-wide interaction and
engagement among private and public sector tourism organisations,
academic institutions (staff and students), destination management
organisations and related external networks to foster and enhance
the growth prospects of tourist destinations in their entirety and
become the custodian of a knowledge repository of best practice in
destination marketing and management.

• To offer a programme of blended learning to support professional
development across tourist destinations to include lectures,
workshops, seminars, webinars, peer-to-peer networks etc.


Objectives
• To develop, and then market, robust and innovative research
frameworks to underpin decision making in destinations and inform
the development and testing of new products, events and markets.

• To enhance BU’s profile and reputation as the pre-eminent institution
for the study of tourism in the UK and provide an environment in
which student recruitment (undergraduate, postgraduate,
professional and PhD), internships and placements, consultancy,
volunteering, graduate employment and academic research can
flourish and raise the external profile of the destination and all
destination stakeholders.


Objectives

• To create a proactive culture of integrated bidding among destination
stakeholders for external funding (e.g. EU, ESRC, AHRC) and growth
opportunities.

• To collaborate with BU’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Business
Engagement to facilitate new destination-related venture
development.


Destination Development
Programme: Elements

• Physical and Virtual Destination Knowledge Exchange
• Professional networking and mentoring
• External lectures and events
• Self-help facility and professional development
• Information repository
• Student hub for internships, placements, consultancy, volunteering and graduate
employment
• Blended Learning
• MSc Destination Marketing & Management
• eMarketing Strategies, Destination Marketing & Management, Managing the
Visitor Experience
• ‘Bite-size’ learning
• Collaboration with VisitEngland, TMI and Tourism Society


Elements: Destination Intelligence
Framework (DIF)

• Development of research frameworks / models
in collaboration with the University Market
Research Group

• Collection and analysis of robust data to
support operational and strategic planning


Elements: Framework for the
Assessment of Major Events (FAME)
• Framework for assessing the viability of major events for
Bournemouth to build on the expertise of the Air Festival
• Potentially transferable
• Framework developed and informed with key
stakeholders and independent expert facilitation
• Need to ‘tie in’ with wider destination development
programme


Elements: Destination Innovation
Group (DIG)

• “To identify and harness the most
dynamic “Emerging Talent” from the
18,000 strong tourism workforce in
Bournemouth, Poole and the New Forest”


Destination Innovation Group (DIG):
Objectives

To realise opportunities for:

• product and service innovation
• greater market differentiation
• a sharper competitive edge
• increased market share and:
• to inform a research and development programme that
will draw on national and international examples to
underpin ideas


HEIF as catalyst for successful bidding

• ESRC Knowledge Exchange – Digital
Destinations: Exchanging Digital Technology
Knowledge in Local Tourism Economies

• Crown Estates/Coastal Communities –
National Coastal Tourism Academy


Some points arising from yesterday

• The destination brand = the sum of all the stories
• The DMO as the enabler in a destination
• Passionate communities
• Lifestage is key to influence buyer behaviour
• Big data – how to mine it?
• What to do next “Put 50% into CRM”
• Where in the funnel can you influence?


Digital Destinations
• Recruit 60 ‘visitor economy’ businesses – diverse
membership in terms of size, sector, skills and knowledge
- divided into six clusters
• Aim: to discuss, develop, test and share best practice in
online marketing focused on the development of an
effective and measurable online marketing strategy
• Empower businesses in the destination
• Overall focus on co-production and co-delivery of
knowledge
• End product - more effective individual business online
marketing = greater online presence for the destination as
a whole

Greater than the sum of the parts


What do the businesses get?
• An online marketing strategy developed, tested and
critiqued over a 12-month period
• Expert input via face to face seminars, online webinars
and access to materials via the project website
• A final year student is placed with the organisation and
works alongside them on their online marketing strategy
• An opportunity to benchmark against peer group
• Insights into leading edge measurement and tracking of
online marketing to get that all-elusive ROI data!
• Peer support


Poll

Question: How do you measure your ROI from social media?

a) New traffic to your website?

b) New sales leads generated?

c) The number of Likes / Fans / Views?

d) Increase in brand sentiment?

e) Collection of profiling data?

31

Results

Question: How do you measure your ROI from social media?

32

Why Digital Visitor

Digital Visitor specialise in the Travel,
Tourism and Leisure sector both for:

Social media technology
•Application for easy integration into
websites providing review and social
media capability

Social media marketing
•Relevant experience for social media
campaigns and channel management
in the industry
33

Reviews increasing conversions

•Potential customers expect
to see reviews
•60% of consumers say
they’re more likely to make
a purchase from a website
with ratings and reviews
Jupiter Research and iPerceptions
•Why let customers leave
your website to find these

34

Driving organic traffic

Search engines love
reviews

Regularly added user
generated reviews,
including images and
videos, will help to drive
organic traffic

35

Increasing traffic from social media channels

Sharing content with social
media channels

•Company’s profile – Sharing
content to your own profiles
will drive traffic

•Customers – Use your
customers to tell other like
minded individuals by
sharing to their own profiles

36

Gathering content

How can you gather content
for your own website
•Ask customers to add
reviews

•Make it easy for them

•Show reviews and media
content against relevant
products and services

37

Measurement is key

‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not
everything that counts can be counted”


Customer engagement value


Crown Estates/Coastal Communities:
National Coastal Tourism Academy (NCTA)

• “The NCTA is a ground-breaking knowledge transfer
initiative, designed to accelerate tourism growth in
destinations and businesses across Britain.”

• “Its aim is to coordinate an entire coastal tourism
destination as a centre of excellence that will provide a
unique combination of practical and academic support.”


S

Shared vision

Primary purposes of the NCTA

• To increase economic performance of tourism in
Bournemouth, then more widely

• To establish the NCTA as a viable centre of
excellence internationally.

NCTA Programme Elements

• Coastal Activity Park and programme
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLheNd5oVIw
• Developing resort wide ‘world class’ visitor
experience programmes
• Coastal tourism product research and
development programme

• Informed by and informing national and
international research and best practice


NCTA: How is it funded?

• Two years funded support from the Coastal Communities
Fund, administered by DCLG, with support from
Bournemouth University and commitments from
Bournemouth Tourism Management Board and Borough
Council

• Key aims of securing long-term sustainability and
longitudinal, funded research programmes and

• securing national and international profile and
participation

A destination manager’s perspective:
Tony Climpson

• Benefits of delivering student lectures
• Value of student placements/secondments
• Students are the future – we’re the present
(often the past )
• Learning never stops
• It’s a two way street


Relationships between universities and
destination management: Issues and
challenges
• What are your experiences and observations on working
relationships between destination managers, the wider
tourism sector and higher education?


Questions and Contacts:

Lisa Ashurst
School of Tourism, Bournemouth University

ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk

www.bournemouth.ac.uk

Tmi 091012

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