Granicus launches new destinations business segment and platform to support destination marketing organisations.
With talk of potential new visitor levies and tourist taxes being introduced in the UK, there’s pressure on local authorities and regional bodies to balance the economic and community value of tourism with the needs of residents.
Photo by Thiago Rocha / Unsplash
The result of this, say customer engagement specialists Granicus, is that destination marketing organisations (DMOs) must be accountable for not just attracting visitors but demonstrating the benefits of investments in tourism to everyone from local residents and businesses to elected officials and other community stakeholders. That in turn means DMOs need to be to integrate tourism data, engagement and outcomes.
That’s why Granicus is launching Destinations Experience Cloud (DXC) and Granicus Destinations, a dedicated business segment focused exclusively on supporting DMOs and place-based brands.
The aim is to replace disconnected tools and inadequate reporting with purpose-built technology, shared data, automated insights and embedded expertise. DXC is designed around the three core tenets of modern destination management: demand generation, meetings and events sales, and stakeholder accountability. The platform unifies disconnected websites, CRM, analytics and reporting tools with a single, shared data foundation.
Applied AI and data science will provide advanced data analytics and digital engagement capabilities aiding DMOs as they seek to better understand and serve visitors, meeting planners, residents and other stakeholders. That will enable DMOs to operate as accountable economic stewards, using shared data to justify investments, align tourism with community priorities and attract high value business.
With integrated, data-driven insights and connected technologies, DXC enables DMOs to incorporate advanced reporting, product innovations and AI-enabled capabilities seamlessly and automatically as DXC platform advancements are continuously released. Granicus Destinations will bring practical AI applications into DMO and stakeholder experiences to drive operational efficiencies, optimise demand generation through AI-driven user journeys and proactively surface actionable opportunities from industry-leading visitor and meetings sales data available in Granicus systems.
Ian Roberts, UK Managing Director of Granicus, says: ‘Given the economic uncertainty and wider change the UK has experienced over the past 12 months, there is a growing need for local regions to drive tourism as a lever for economic growth. Destination organisations play a central role in supporting communities, attracting investment and creating places where people want to live, work and study.
‘At the same time, DMOs are under increasing pressure to balance visitor growth with the needs of residents and demonstrate clear value. Bringing together data, engagement and reporting in one place, organisations can utilise DXC to take a more joined up, evidence-based approach to managing tourism and delivering long term community benefit.’
Mark Hynes, CEO of Granicus, adds: ‘As we transition and evolve Simpleview into Granicus Destinations, we are honoured to carry forward the people, products, history and deep industry partnership that DMOs have come to trust.
‘By combining over 25 years of tourism and destinations expertise with Granicus’ unique history of building and supporting community experience and intelligence solutions at high-scale, Granicus Destinations is uniquely positioned to help DMO leaders manage an increasingly complex and connected landscape of stakeholder engagement. No solutions partner is better equipped to help leaders understand, measure and address the ‘whole of the community’ complexities necessary to support economic growth and vitality than Granicus.’
In related news:
Opinion: Putting contract management at the centre of delivery
Leave a Reply