The Digital Destinations project is an ESRC-funded research project run by Bournemouth University that aims to help local tourism businesses improve their use of digital technologies. Pioneer Expeditions, a small adventure tour operator, participated in workshops covering online marketing strategies. Pioneer's objectives were to increase engagement on their website and through email campaigns. Tactics included redesigning email newsletters and optimizing website content and calls to action. While full outcomes were not achieved due to time constraints, Pioneer saw increased email open rates and plans to continue digital improvements. Challenges included balancing the project timeline with their busy season.

1. DIGITAL DESTINATIONS
Dr Philip Alford
Bournemouth University
www.digitalhub.co.uk
www.pinterest.com/digitaldest
www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub
ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk
@schooloftourism | @philipalford
#DDBU

2. Digital Destinations project is an ESRC funded research project,
delivered by Bournemouth University,
with an overarching aim to:
‘capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies
and to develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy.
Through increased understanding and use of emerging digital
technologies, visitor economy businesses will be in a position to
increase their marketing and management effectiveness, and
develop new products and services that will provide an
enhanced experience for visitors to their destinations’

3. The businesses benefited from 4 workshops which covered:
 Background to on line marketing
 Individual Business objectives
 Developing the strategy
 Measuring impact
 Reporting outcomes via case studies
All course material can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/DigitalHub
All business outcomes and blogs can be found at http://www.budigitalhub.co.uk/

4. The following presentation is the case study provided by Pioneer Expeditions
Pioneer Expeditions utilised many elements of online marketing but felt they were being
left behind especially with regard to social media. Digital Destinations provided a great
basis of the tools available to them, as well as some interesting insights and ideas for
future improvements to both their website and engaging with their clients. They made
some specific improvements to their email newsletter including giving more tips and
useful information about travel in general and more opportunities for clients to interact
with them.

5. Digital Destinations

6. Table of contents
• Background
• Reason why Pioneer joined Digital Destinations
• Area of focus
• 2 objectives
• Tactics
• Outcome
• Challenges
• Learnings
• Next step

7. Background
• Who is Pioneer Expeditions?
– A niche adventure travel tour operator offering unique off-the-beaten
track holidays
– Main selling channels are exhibitions, website and travel forums
• Where we are in the market
– We are a very small fish in a big pond
• Reason why we embarked on Digital Destinations
– Wanted to understand and utilise social media better

8. Main Reasons for signing up to Digital
Destinations
• We had decided that our online marketing strategy was a key
factor in helping grow our business
• We felt that the we were getting behind with social media
• Thought this would be a good opportunity to learn more
about best practice in this area
• Wanted the assistance of a student to help with a social
media campaign
• Particuarly wanted to develop our presence on Facebook

9. Initial Benefits and Challenges
• Initial Benefits
– found the 1st seminar exciting and instructive - it gave a clear outline
as to all of the different channels to use
– Meeting some other great businesses in the Digital Olympians
• Initial Challenges
– Trying to come up with objectives that fitted into the University /
Student requirements. This meant that Pioneer could not really do
what Pioneer embarked on the project for (eg. Improving our
facebook presence)
– As a result of the change in focus, ultimately we were not as
committed to the project as we should have been.

10. Objectives
• Objectives:-
– Increase awareness of company
– Improve website traffic
– Engage with clients and Database
– Improve conversion rate / bookings

11. Area of focus for Digital Destinations
• To get 5% of prospects that signed up for our e-mail
database to re-engage with their site
• To enhance the customer journey on our website to
reduce the bounce rate by 5%

12. Tactics
• E-mail marketing
– new design & concept for email-shots
– Providing more informative / interesting content......Less sales
– Regular emailshots
– Encouraging more client interaction through newsletters
• Website optimisation
– Reduce the amount of information on show
– Add call to action on every page
– Create a blog

13. Control
• Newsletter
– Actions were put in place but objectives could not be met during the
short timeframe of the project
– The number of opens on the new design raised by 13%
• Site Changes
– Actions not in place

14. Action Plan
• Email Marketing
– We are continuing to improve and develop our email marketing
campaign
• Website
– Plan to start implementing some of the improvements over July / Aug
(which is a quieter period for Pioneer in terms of sales)

15. Benefits of the Program
• Good motivation for us to focus on our online
strategy
• A very insightful and interesting final report from our
student
• Great to meet other local businesses and exchange
ideas

16. Challenges of the Program
• Time & Timescale
– It took about 2 months to decide on the objective, and there was only
approx 1 month really available to make all the changes and get some
results (to fit in with the university timescale – even though the
project officially finished 2 months later).
– The time when the actual work was taking place was the busiest sales
period for Pioneer and we found it difficult to spend our time on the
project
• Expectations
– Originally signed up to the program thinking the main focus was on a
student aiding us in a basic online project. It ended up being more
academic than that and the students finished their 2 months before
the program finished.
– Having to change our objective for the program to fit into the
Bournemouth University / Student requriements for the program

17. For more information on DIGITAL DESTINATIONS contact:
Dr Philip Alford, Bournemouth University
ddp@bournemouth.ac.uk
@schooloftourism | @philipalford
#DDBU