The one where we review how social media is impacting travel planning and sharing.

2. Intro
Habits
Trends
Consumer
Destination
CONTENTS

3. INTRODUCTION
DMAI’s release of the
DestinationNEXT report brought
social media front and center as an
opportunity and indeed a necessity
for destination marketers. This is
good timing considering that the
upcoming generation of Millennials
are not only the most prolific users
of social media, but turn to it first for
information.
74% of all women in the US and 62%
of all men in the US are social media
users. While 71% of US adults from
30-64 use social media, a whopping
90% of 18-29 year olds are social
media users. Millennials don’t just
use social media, they live in it. Social
media has become their primary
communications tool, storefront,
scrap book, pin board and channel for
expression.
In this e-book we will talk about how,
not just Millennials, but all travelers
are using social media for vacation
inspiration, advice and shopping as
well as inspiring and recommending
vacation destinations to their friends
and families. We will also look at how
Smart Destinations are using social
media to attract visitors, benchmarks
for success and opportunities you
should be taking advantage of.
Fig. 1: Future Map — Top 20 Trends
HIGHER LOWE R
3.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.1 3.0 2.9
AVERAGE LEVEL OF IMPORTANCE
•
© DMAI / Inter VISTAS
© DMAI / Inter VISTAS • ii
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
On its 100th anniversary, Destination Marketing Association
International (DMAI) is taking a bold leadership step with
the DestinationNEXT initiative. The vision is to provide
Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) with practical,
clear actions and strategies for sustainable success in a
dramatically changing world. This road map will culminate
with a number of co-created transformational strategies and
DMO prototypes based on the specific characteristics of their
communities and destinations.
This initiative was made possible through a generous
grant from the Destination & Travel Foundation. After an
extensive review process, a project team was selected, led
by InterVISTASConsulting Inc. (InterVISTAS), along with a
number of experienced executives from the DMO community
(GainingEdge, Bandwidth Management, and Global Meetings &
Tourism Specialists).
The project team completed a detailed review of industry
trends, supported by a futurist and industry panel. An
extensive survey was sent to industry leaders in March 2014.
The response was strong: 327 DMOs from 36 countries
participated in the survey, one of the best response rates of
any DMAI survey.
The top 20 trends were plotted on a grid that assessed each
trend based on:
• Degree to which the trend will have a positive or negative
impact on the DMO and destination
• Degree of control the DMO has to influence this trend
Rather than a conventional SWOT analysis, this approach helps
organizations focus on trends and issues that they can impact
or affect (e.g., the upper quadrants of the grid where a DMO
can exploit opportunities and mitigate threats).
The analysis identified a number of opportunities to exploit (e.g.,
upper right quadrant of the grid). They revolved around the
following areas:
• Playing an expanded role in the community on broader
economic development issues
• Improving branding of a destination in leisure and
meetings and conventions markets
• Capitalizing on social media and smart technology to
engage and access residents, industry, and markets
This is good news for DMOs, who will have many opportunities
to continue making a positive and significant impact on their
communities in the future.
The detailed analysis of trends, strategies, and organization of
the future concludes that DMOs have three transformational
opportunities to effectively address the changing world. DMOs
will have to move in each of these directions given that they
are highly interrelated.Fig. 1: Future Map — Top 20 Trends
Hotel taxes
vulnerable to
alternative
politically
based
projects
Brand impact on leisure
Mobile platforms &apps primary engagement
Brand
impact for
groups
Tourism
integrated with
economic
development
Personalized travel experience
Technology
enabling faster
decision-makingBig Data
Short-stay
trips
Smart
technology
opportunities
Social media
prominence
More
personalized
information
Geotargeting &
localization
Ordering
products
online
Highly volatile
economic
conditions
Governments
facing budget
pressure
More third-party
information
Peer-to-peer
Customers
going directly
to suppliers
Experience locals’
way of life
HIGHER LOWER
3.5 3.4 3.3 3.2 3.1 3.0 2.9 MITIGATE CONTROLLABLE
OPPORTUNITYTHREAT
EXPLOIT
MONITORCONTINGENCIES UNCONTROLLABLE
AVERAGE LEVEL OF IMPORTANCE
•
54
4
5
321
1
2
© DMAI / Inter VISTAS

4. Social & SEO
At the end of June Google announced
a better integration of social media
content into search engine results
pages (SERPs). Now, when users
search for something such as 4th of
July decorations or where to eat in
Miami on their mobile device, they’ll
not only get more traditional websites,
ecommerce sites, etc. but they will
also get links from social media
platforms such as Pinterest, Houzz.
These results will be available in a
sliding carousel at the top of SERPs.
This shows not only the importance
of social media to SEO, but it shows
how important visual content is to
social media. Right now this service
is focused on recipes and decorating,
which take up a majority of the
content on sites such as Pinterest,
as more travel related brands jump
into Pinterest we’ll see users finding
vacations via SERPs, Pinterest and we
expect Twitter and Instagram to be
integrated in the future.

5. Social Networks by
Total Users
Facebook
1,415mm
Instagram
300mm YouTube
1,000mm
LinkedIn
364mm
Google+
343mm
Tumblr
230mm SnapChat
200mm
Twitter
288mm Pinterest
76mm
Google Plus, often called a ”ghost town”,
has more users
than Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and
SnapChat yet few travel brands use G+.

6. LinkedIn: 1049Pinterest: 229
Instagram: 843
Facebook: 338
Twitter: 208
YouTube: 25
Tumblr: 500
Social Networks by
Average Followers per
User
Instagram users have more reach
than users of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
and YouTube combined.

7. How
Social Media
Influences
TRAVELChoices

8. 52% OF CONSUMERS USE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR
VACATION INSPIRATION
ALLIANZ GLOBAL
26%4%
6%
14%

9. 52% OF CONSUMERS WHO USED SOCIAL MEDIA
TO RESEARCH TRAVEL PLANS CHANGED
THEIR ORIGINAL PLANS
33%
Switched
hotels
Switched
resorts
Switched
booking
Switched
destination
Switched
airlines
10% 10% 7% 5%
Houston Chronicle Mashable

10. 121 Likes
110 Likes
52%
83% 74%
84%
say they begin dreaming
about a vacation even
if they didn’t have one
planned
are more confident about
their travel destination
when friends and family
validate or recommend it
say they only book when
friends and family are
involved in the decision
are inspired by friends’
travel posts
Aoife Desmond, team lead for travel vertical at Facebook
say they can easily
imagine going to a place
if they see friends and
family have been
70%
and travel planning

11. One in six visitors to travel sites are also
users...
...and of Pinterest users perform
a Pinterest-inspired activity every month
Things To Do Families Tips Memories Children Summer Activities Walt Disney Bucket Lists Baby
All Pins Your Pins Pinners Boards
from Living Well Spending Less®
The Best Family Road Trip Ever
The Best Family Road Trip Ever.
(10 ways to truly enjoy the journey)
Great tips and awesome insight
from a mom who just finished a 29
day, 4,000 mile road trip with her
family. Don't even think about
planning a road trip without
reading this post first!
1469 172 2
Terry Wilder
Good to Know
Best place to travel with kids in
California? Travel to Columbia,
California | This Is My
Happiness.com
100 16 1
Jenna of This Is My Happiness t…
This Is My Happiness Travel Blog
Kids Love Travel.com - Discover
the best places to visit with Kids
191 7
Nicole Nash
Travel
Awesome list. i would add Mollys
Cupcakes. best ever and great
"story". 76 Things to do in Chicago
with Kids
5933 509 6
Lisa Andreas
Travel
from Mommy Poppins - Things to D…
Best Family Hotels in NYC: 10
Great Places to Stay with Kids
in New York City
627 35 2
Stephanie Berry Sklut
Places To Go
Rise Gear makes bags and
suitcases that are like a portable
closet.
8494 1269 16
Promoted by
The Grommet
from It's Always Autumn
20 best ideas, activities, and
resources for road trips with
kids
have a #road #trip coming up?
Check out this post for links to the
very best activities, snacks, and
tips for road trips with #kids - find
hundreds of ideas all in one place!
234 16
Alena S
Travel ~ Road Trip Activities for …
from The Typical Mom
Best Vacation Spots for Kids
Like many families we take at least
one big vacation a year, usually
during the Summer break. We love
exploring the United States with
our kids and road trips are the best
ways to really connect with your
kids, see the scenery, and find
spots you never would have
known about had you been on …
666 56 1
The Typical Mom
Kid Blogger Network Activities …
9 Things to Do With Kids on Maui
AWESOME pin! Done almost all of
these. Baby Beach is the BEST.
Checking out the Surfing Goat
Dairy this year. ;)
2878 190 3
Leona LaRue
MAUI
The 16 Best Places to Go on
Vacation With a Baby or Toddler. A
must-read before you pick a
vacay. www.ivillage.com/...
1967 130 2
iVillage
Travel
from The Dating Divas
101 Best Family Vacations
101 Best Family Vacations in the
USA. I've been to 16, but I'll
happily revisit any of them with the
kids! ...or else head to new places
altogether, there are plenty of neat
places across the country!
1146 100 1
❤
My escape from reality...
from lilsugar.com
The 10 Best National Parks to
Visit With Kids
1623 77 1
Erin Wing
Awesome to Zen
10 Best Places to Travel with Kids
Internationally
163 5
Leanna @ Alldonemonkey.com
Travel with Kids
63Michaelbest places to travel with kids
64%
comScore

12. How Consumers Are
Sharing Their Vacations
Instagram has 26 million images tagged
#vacation
and hundreds of thousands tagged with
variations such as #vacationmodeon
46%
OF TRAVELERS CHECK INTO A
LOCATION ON FACEBOOK
& FOURSQUARE 76%
OF TRAVELERS POST PHOTOS
OF THEIR VACATIONS ON
SOCIAL MEDIA SITES
Mashable

13. How Consumers Are
Sharing Their Vacations
45%
1 in 3 1 in 4 1 in 5
50%share photos from their trip on
Twitter
use Twitter to
find local events
use Twitter for local
restaurant/tourism
recommendations
use Twitter to get
flight updates
Despite warnings that talking about travel
via social networks is a home security risk,
people continue to share details of their travel
experiences including check-ins, photos and
video. With 80% of active users updating their
Twitter status via mobile, the ease of Tweeting
while on the road is obvious. More than half of
vacationing Twitter users are posting daily, some
posting multiple times per day. In fact 30% of
social media users claim that they see at least one
friend posting vacation-related content in their
feed per day.
Twitter has become a digital concierge of sorts
for travelers; allowing them to not only share their
agenda but to get information about their trip.
Tweet about their vacation
status
Mashable

14. What Consumers Are
Saying About Destinations
#1 Cleanliness
#2 Location
#3 Staff Friendliness
Travelers talk a lot about their travels. A recent
study looked into exactly what they were saying
about hotels. Over 7 million social media posts were
analyzed and found the top 3 things travelers care
about in regards to their accommodations:
The study found some interesting accommodations-
related posts that were very specific to each
destination:
In Nebraska the top concern for travelers was
breakfast
In Mississippi travelers were seeking comfort
In Maryland size mattered, the most common topic
was room size.
In Alaska the top theme for travelers was “quiet”
Netbase

15. Every day consumers share content on
new tools & new social
networks

16. How
DMOsAre Leveraging
Social Media

17. How DMOs Are
Rocking Twitter
At last year’s DMAI Annual Convention Fuseideas
launched a new Twitter benchmarking tool called
Potential Human Reach™. This website looks not
just at followers but at the actual reach of the
brand’s Twitter account as well as it’s engagement
with it’s followers. Over 40 DMOs registered and
today we have a leader-board of almost 200
travel brands. This allows us to look at the overall
industry performance data to provide benchmarks
on things like ReTweet rates, image sharing
percentages, follower counts, engagement per
follower and of course, Potential Human Reach™.
The following represents the standings from the
top for many of these measurements as of July
2015.
If you’d like to see your DMO represented, visit
www.potentialhumanreach.com/dmai2015.

18. Twitter Followers: Top DMOs
@visitbritain 295,642
@I_LOVE_NY 282,375
@vegas 283,375
@nycgo 213,747
@VISITFLORIDA* 101,359
@washingtondc* 83,250
@Colorado 118,338
@visitmusiccity 114,317
@discoverLA 105,054
@VisitAustinTX 120,587
Top follower counts were obvious choices (even
if NYC and New York State compete with each
other). We’re seeing top follower rates for DMOs in
the tens and hundreds of thousands of followers
for top brands. However, this has become a less
and less important metric as we are able to see
more details on who is actually seeing brand
content and which content is engaging and
relevant enough for followers to share. Sharing
content is extremely important so that your
content can extend beyond just your follower base
but also to their followers. Shared content extends
the visibility of a brand but can also attract
additional users.
Take a close look at the rankings above and see
how they change once we look at engagement
and actual reach in the following pages.
* client or former client

19. Twitter Engagement: Top DMOs
@This_is_Hampton 276.47
@mplsnorthwest 210.20
@spainusa 253.89
@visitventure 164.24
@VisitOmaha 125.01
@visitgreecegr
@itsdccool*
116.74
113.15
@GoToBermuda* 134.73
@daytoncvb 128.88
@VisitNorfolk 143.84
The engagement rate shown above represents
how many people you reach for every one person
that follows you. This tells us how engaging your
content is by how much it is shared.
Photos, videos, and website cards all impact
engagement. In 2013 Twitter underwent a
redesign allowing images to be shown in-stream.
Previously all images were links that required
users to click in order to view. With in-stream
images Twitter changed from a gray stream of
text to a colorful waterfall of moving and still
visuals. In summer of 2012 Twitter created
website cards, which allow brands to add code
to their website so that the links from their
website they post in Twitter get a more robust
presentation that includes images, video, text and
call to action buttons. Now imagine how easy it
is to miss plain text Tweets among Tweets full
of images and video. Often engagement can be
traced directly to how many images and videos a
brand is sharing.
The list above shows the top 10 DMOs, not
according to how many people follow and
possibly ignore their Tweets, but by how high their
engagement is by virtue of relevant and engaging
content that is shared.
* client or former client
Fuseideas
case study
Engagement: Agency of Record Length: 2 years
Results:
1500% increase in Engagement on Facebook
750% increase in Likes on Facebook

20. Potential Human Reach™: Top DMOs
@visitbritain 22,607,386
@I_LOVE_NY 14,334,647
@vegas 9,252,025
@nycgo 6,812,131
@VISITFLORIDA* 6,108,191
@visitgreecegr 6,023,696
@Colorado 5,163,586
@visitsandiego 3,858,661
@CityMinneapolis 3,622,767
@germanytourism* 3,232,149
Potential Human Reach™ is Fuseideas’ proprietary
algorithm that allows us to see what a brand’s
actual reach is beyond just their followers to
their followers’ followers based on the level
of engagement their followers have with their
Twitter content. This one number combines both
engagement and popularity to give us a single
metric to benchmark.
Since it’s launch at the DMAI Annual Conference
in Las Vegas last year almost 200 destination
brands have submitted their Twitter accounts and
discovered their Potential Human Reach™.
* client or former client

21. of Top DMOs
ReTweet rate is a good indicator of how engaging
your followers find your content. When followers
share your content they are adding your brand
to their brand portfolio. By sharing, they are
introducing your brand to their networks. This is
how your level of engagement can increase your
followers.
Over the last couple of years Twitter has changed
from a text format to a visual format, with images
and videos being shared inline. This means that it
is imperative for brands to use images and video
in tweets in order to get seen.
82%48%
Average ReTweet RateAverage Tweets with
Images or Video
9x Average number of times the top engaging
DMOs are Tweeting every day
Do you want to know your ReTweet rate or percentage of images
and video? Visit www.potentialhumanreach.com/dmai2015

22. of the Average DMO
The top DMOs like NYC, Las Vegas, Great Britain,
etc. are performing exceptionally well in social
media. But we found DMOs that shared less
than 1 image in 100 tweets or tweeted only once
or twice per week. So we looked at the overall
averages for almost 200 DMOs to share some
information about their Twitter followers and
engagement.
25,277 Average number of followers of a
DMO Twitter account
5x Average number of times the aver-
age DMOs are Tweeting every day
1,223,614 Average Potential
Human Reach™
59 Average engagement rate
(people reached per follower)
45%15%
Average ReTweet RateAverage Tweets with
Images or Video

23. Emerging Paid Social Media
Opportunities for
Promoting DMOs
Paid Social Media Ads
Website Cards
cinematic pins
Carousel Ads
promoted posts
dark posts
Pre-Roll
sponsored snaps
Sponsored
Tweets
3V ADS
Lead
Generation
Cards
Promoted Pins
video ads
sponsored
updates
Fuseideas
case study
Engagement: Media Length: 6 months
Results:
2.139% top Facebook Ad Click Through Rate
1,115,372 total Facebook ad impressions

24. Brand
Consistency
Very often social media is still an afterthought
for brands; something to be plugged in once the
campaign is underway or the web site is live.
What this often means is that brands’ social
media channels are inconsistently branded
leading to confusion and poor brand perception
as well as recognition. Of the almost 200 DMOs
we reviewed almost one third were inconsistently
branded; their social media channel logos, header
graphics and content lacked current branding and
messaging were inconsistent with their website
and branding collateral. This inconsistency goes
beyond visual branding; DMO’s often neglect to
include URLs or user names for the social media
accounts in printed or broadcast branding. Just
adding an icon requires consumers to search for
your social media account name, which may ALSO
be inconsistent with your website branding.
DMOs with consistent social media branding 145
DMOs with inconsistent social media branding 42

25. Thank You
Potential Human Reach™ is a
proprietary algorithm Fuseideas uses
to measure the 2 most important
factors to social media marketers;
reach and engagement. This tool
provides insight into how well your
Twitter account is performing, why
it may be going unseen, how many
real people your Tweets reach beyond
just your followers but to their
followers as well. Potential Human
Reach™ was launched at the 2014
DMAI Annual Convention. Since then
almost 200 DMOs have used the tool
giving us a leader-board that allows
us to benchmark the performance
of the entire travel vertical. For more
information and your free analysis visit:
potentialhumanreach.com/dmai2015.
Fuseideas is an award-winning
full service creative agency that
specializes in developing innovative,
integrated and measurable campaigns
for Destinations seeking differentiation
in an increasingly chaotic media
environment. We break through
this “chaos” with a strategic mix of
traditional, digital, and social media
built upon a rock-solid creative
strategy designed to ensure that your
Destination stands out among its
competitors.
CONTACT
Dennis Franczak
8 Winchester Place
Suite 303
Winchester, MA
01890
P 617-776-5800
www.fuseideas.com