Episode 200, Live From Destinations International: Data-Driven Decision Making

Mark Lapidus: I'm excited to share that we've reached our 200th episode! And to celebrate this milestone, we're taking you on a journey into the future of travel. This episode, recorded live at Destinations International in Tampa, Florida, is your ticket to staying ahead in the ever-evolving world of travel. Thank you for listening and being part of the journey. 

Intro [0:17]: Recorded live from the Destinations International convention in Tampa, Florida, welcome to Brand USA Talks Travel. This year's Destinations International Annual Convention promises to ignite your passion and fuel your growth, and we'll plug you into all the visionary leaders making that possible. Now here's your host, Mark Lapidus. 

Mark Lapidus [0:38]: In your many years of tourism research, has there ever been an a-ha moment where your data just completely flipped your view? 

Anna Blount [0:44]: Yes, there has, because the printed tourism guides, as you well know, like, are people using them or not using them, and how do you survey them, and things like that? And the fact remains is even to this day, people are still using printed visitor guides, especially with older generations who actually have more disposable income to travel. Ten years ago, people were like, they're not going to be any more guides; it's all gonna be online. No one's gonna print out another thing ever again. And they're still here, and they're still being used, and they're still effective for a lot of destinations. So that's one where we predicted it, but data is showing that, in fact, they're still being used. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [1:16]: I will focus on the a-ha moment of that, Mark, because for me, many times, looking at data collectively gives me that a-ha moment of something that I kind of had a gut feeling about. And then, when the data comes through and shows, yes, the pieces are fitting together like you think they are, that's sort of the a-ha moment for me. And I want to preface our conversation with telling you a little bit about work that I do in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. 

Mark Lapidus [1:38]: I was just there! 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [1:39]: Oh, you were? Where? 

Mark Lapidus [1:40]: Last week. I was in Avon. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [1:42]: Oh, I love Avon. That's the beach that I grew up going to. So you and I have a lot to talk about, because a lot of the work that I do are in places like the Outer Banks. And I actually got to live in the Outer Banks summer of 2021 and do some research. 

Mark Lapidus [1:54]: Lucky. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [1:54]: I know. That is where I had this a-ha moment, talking with 40 different tourism stakeholders all across the Outer Banks. And this was in a post-Covid recovery for this area, and they were really struggling with workforce issues, especially affordable housing. And I heard time and time again, Anna was talking about quantitative research sort of showing this a-ha moment. Qualitative research, for me in this place, made that a-ha moment happen. To hear this story from these tourism industry members time and time again, that we need to support our workforce, whether that's with affordable housing, childcare, advancement in their careers. The data showed that time and time again, and gave me that a-ha moment of like, this is where we need to focus our efforts and really put strategy to work based upon the data that we see. 

Mark Lapidus [2:33]: Joining me today are two experts at the forefront of tourism research and data interpretation. Anna Blount, Vice President of Research at Longwoods International, and Dr. Whitney- I was going to say "Kollenberg," see, cause it has a 'k' in my copy. Her last name is actually Knollenberg, and I knew this cause she told me before we started. I think I'm just gonna leave this in; we're not even gonna take it out, cause it's just so funny that I'm such an idiot. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [2:55]: I tried. I tried. Mark. 

Anna Blount [2:57]: Oh, Mark, I can't take you anywhere. 

Mark Lapidus [2:59]: I know. Neither can my wife. Whitney is the Associate Professor at North Carolina State University for this department. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [3:07]: Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. 

Mark Lapidus [3:09]: Fantastic. Welcome to Brand USA Talks Travel, both of you. I'd like to start by asking Anna, how have you seen the role of data and destination marketing evolving over the past decade? 

Anna Blount [3:18]: In the past decade, it really has evolved a lot. Even data sources that we had ten years ago are being used in fundamentally different ways. As destinations go to be data-driven organizations, you have more and more needs for these strategic questions, you need more actual data that's going, again- strategy and advocacy are the two main focuses now of the modern DMO, the new kind of data. Because of big data, there's so many more big data data sets that are so much cleaner. I mean, just look at the difference in short-term rental data of ten years ago versus now, it's night and day how much better the information is on there. So we have a lot more tools, and the ones you're using, even traditional, I'm a traditional market researcher, surveys and focus groups and stakeholder interviews, they're being used in far more innovative ways now than they ever were before. Because again, we all are trying to be data-driven organizations. I don't know if any of us have gotten there, but with all the different data sources that are being used, we're going to get to the point where we're finally getting away from the focus group of one and getting into the actual, this is the information that's going to have the best results for our destination. 

Mark Lapidus [4:16]: So how does artificial intelligence play into the manipulation of all this data? 

Anna Blount [4:20]: We won't say manipulation, perhaps, maybe analysis. We're not that creative of researchers, my friend. But the one thing that I'm going to say is that AI is increasingly used in all these different kinds of ways in our realm in the destination space, and Travel and Tourism Research Association, we're about to kick off a think tank group where we're actually going to have individual tasks that are in marketing, data research, and we're going to have academics do it, we're going to have practitioners do it and AI do it. And then we're going to have a panel that actually evaluates it. So hold that point for a couple months from now, and we're going to tell you exactly what AI does best and does not do best in the current situation. 

Mark Lapidus [4:54]: Oh, I can't wait to hear that. 

Anna Blount [4:55]: It's going to be exciting, and again, the benefit about Travel and Tourism Research Association, TTRA International, is that we're able to have, like, the synergies wherever Whitney and I work together, academics, practitioners together, that's how we're going to make these advances that really help our destinations and our partners, and we want to really have data that goes behind that. 

Mark Lapidus [5:11]: Sounds like you're doing it very fast. 

Anna Blount [5:13]: Oh, yeah. The think tanks have to get up and running. We've been doing the think tank we're talking about today like eight, nine months, and we're already here. So we're really looking into it. We did one on workforce as well. 

Mark Lapidus [5:22]: Whitney, your research focuses on sustainable tourism development. What brought you to be interested in that subject? 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [5:27]: Yeah, so I've been working in that sustainable tourism research space since 2009, when I was part of the inaugural class of a Masters of Science and Sustainable Tourism at East Carolina University. And I chose that program because I had a real interest in supporting communities where tourism needed to be developed. So I come from a very rural area in Michigan. It's a beautiful place. 

Mark Lapidus [5:52]: You can name it. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [5:53]: Okay, great. Delton, Michigan. It's a beautiful place, sort of undiscovered gem in southwest Michigan that is a place that would really benefit from a lot of tourism. I could look around that and see that growing up, and I was really intrigued with this idea of, how do we make tourism work for communities like Delton? And that's really helped me expand my work in the tourism industry, working in those kind of communities like the Outer Banks of North Carolina, like some of our mountain communities in North Carolina, to bring the expertise and the research to them to help them build out tourism in those spaces. 

Mark Lapidus [6:27]: So what role do you see data playing in creating more sustainable and equitable tourism practices? 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [6:32]: Yeah, I'm so glad you're asking this, Mark, because this is, to what Anna was talking about before, getting us to these data-driven decisions for destinations. Sustainability has to be data-driven. You cannot be sustainable without the data to illustrate the impacts that you're having on a community. Economic, certainly important, that's sort of the baseline. We have to have that, but we need to start thinking about where those data sources are going to come for our environmental impacts, as well as our social and cultural impacts. So if you want to go and talk to your stakeholders and say, "Hey, we are a sustainable destination," how do you demonstrate that? You have to have the data to say, we are improving your quality of life. President sentiment survey, that might be through focus groups with your stakeholders across the community and adjacent industries. You have to be able to show that piece of we're actually putting the rubber to the road and making this happen. Otherwise, you're just talking about an abstract concept. 

Mark Lapidus [7:24]: Is this an opportunity for destinations to look beyond themselves and into other local organizations to help with the funding? 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [7:30]: Absolutely. There must be those partnerships, whether it's funding, whether it's collaborative efforts in terms of staffing and bringing people together on collaborative initiatives. It could be looking at those places where there are clear intersections, whether it's events, whether it's food and beverage, whether it's parks and recreation. I'm in a Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. There's so many synergies in that space; a park can be a place for residents, it can also be a place for tourists. In Raleigh, North Carolina, we're developing Dorothea Dix park as a destination park. It is meant to be this great backyard space for our residents, but we also want tourists coming in there, and that's where we need to see those synergies happen. 

Mark Lapidus [8:09]: On your panel here at DI, the topic is "The Future-Ready Destination Data Toolbox." What exactly is a future-ready destination data toolbox, and why is it important? 

Anna Blount [8:19]: It's important because, again, I mean, a lot of times there's so many disparate kinds of data at this point in our marketplace, there's nobody on a regular DMO staff that's actually going to know how all those data sources granularly work. And without having that more in-depth knowledge, it's really hard to make the right decisions with the right data, okay? Because there's going to be some data that's really good for some strategic decisions or advocacy, and it's terrible at other ones. And it doesn't mean it's a bad data source. It means that you need to use that data appropriately and properly. And so the point of this project that we've been doing, and again, this is emerging from a Travel and Tourism Research Association think tank, is that we're trying to be able to provide a free guide - unbiased, there's no selling, that has nothing to do with that. We're just trying to raise the level of understanding of these different data sources so people are really making the right decision with the right data. And again, you know, I mean, if there was one vendor where they could answer all your questions, Mark, we'd all work for it, right? Like, you know, there's so many different things and value that we have available to us, and so we're just trying to get the right tools in the right hands. And again, I'm the first person to tell you, if you do a research project with me or with Whitney and her team, and you never do anything with it, that project failed. Research should always be a first step; there needs to be steps after it. So you need to make sure when you're getting this research - and again, we have, like, after the COVID funding kind of went away, there are more limited budgets - let's get the right research into the right hands for the right decisions. 

Mark Lapidus [9:40]: I don't know how Amir is going to feel about that last statement you made. 

Anna Blount [9:43]: One of the reasons I went to work at Longwoods is that Amir is very honest about what our research can and can't do. But I love Amir, thank you for my job. 

Mark Lapidus [9:51]: How can destination leaders determine which data tools are more relevant for their specific needs? 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [9:57]: So this really comes back to aligning those goals and KPI's. And you're thinking about a strategic plan, you need to be thinking about where do we want to be, and how are we going to measure how we get there. And that really requires you to do some thinking at the very start of it: what do we need and who do we need to get it from? So thinking not only about the tool itself, but also what your population is going to look like, and what tool, what data makes sense to access that population. If you want to target a very specific area for marketing purposes, you need to be thinking about what's going to be most efficient. Get to that space, and it's going to give you the granularity and the quality of that sample that you really need. So thinking about the who and the what are both very important. And there's a lot of tools out there that you have a lot of complexity and have a lot of inputs. Sometimes the simple solution is the best solution. It allows you to really focus in, it allows you to target what you need. So that may come down to a survey, that may come down to a focus group, really depending, again, on who that is that you're trying to reach, and where does it line up with where you're trying to get your organization to go? 

Mark Lapidus [11:07]: Let's talk about expectation just for a second. Before we turned the microphones on, the ladies were asking me how big the listenership was of this podcast, and what I said to them wasn't - of course, I knew they would laugh, because they're researchers. So I said, "If I told you it was 10,000, would that be good? How about 5,000? How about 500? How about 200? How about 60?" Like, how many listeners is enough listeners on a podcast to the travel industry, that involves no consumers? Like, what defines success? Isn't a large part of any research effort kind of figuring out what determines success before you even start looking at the answers? 

Anna Blount [11:43]: Yes, and unfortunately, in our industry, we actually have destinations where they're buying solutions and they haven't thought through what the question is or what they need to do. I work across the United States, and I work with destinations that are right by each other, and they're completely different destinations. They have different KPI's. Residents are more or less involved in some than others. There are a lot of different players, so it's not even about a geographic location anymore, Mark, it's about the realities of your board, the realities of your partners in the community, and everything else. And so, to your point, you need a base. Yeah, you need a base, and you need to know what you're actually measuring. And the one asterisk I always give, the one asterisk I always give on this is that there's a difference between "it's interesting" and if you can use it. Just because it would be nice to mention in a cocktail party, don't pay for that. You need to be focusing your research like a laser, because, as you all know, if you're doing a survey and there's a whole lot of data points, but only 15% of them are going to actually be of use, your board will find the 85% that are of no use super interesting, and you're gonna have to fight them. You're gonna have to fight them to get to the points that are done. That's why you need well-designed surveys; that's why you need well-defined, again, when we have geolocation data or things like that, where we're diving into data lakes, we need to know exactly what our objective is and then we do the work. Don't put the cart in front of the horse. Have what your destination needs going through and having all the decision making for what data sources that you use. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [13:05]: It should line up in the planning stage. When you're setting those goals and your objectives and a plan, the next piece should be, what's the KPI and where's the data coming from? It shouldn't be an ad hoc thing; you have to be proactive with finding that data source. 

Anna Blount [13:18]: Cause right now you're like, I have all this data, and now I have this question and you're like, oh, well, I guess I can go to try to look at these sources that I bought before I even asked the question and try to make it work. And sometimes you can get away with it, Mark, but sometimes you can't. So we really want destinations to put the thinking in there and be like, what are the things that we need as KPI's? What do we need to be tracking? What do we need to understand about our residents and our travelers and move from there? 

Mark Lapidus [13:43]: Since I opened Pandora's box, I gotta ask you about other common challenges that destinations face when they're trying to implement these new data tools and strategies. What are some of the other potholes that may fall in? 

Anna Blount [13:54]: There are, and again, too, like I said before, where we had data, it wasn't "We're trying to become a data driven organization." And I call it the focus group of one, so you have people either in your organization or your board, and they're like, I've always done it this way, or I have a brewery, and this brewery is going to be in every ad we do. And you know, you have one person who's trying to look at it, looking at it holistically through data. So the pitfall, I would say, is that as you're transitioning to being truly data-driven, you can't give up, and you're not going to win every battle. I was just talking with someone at the CDME classes and research, and she was telling me, she's like, you know, I have all this data, like the visitor guides, and people love the listings. But hey, people hate doing the listings. So we cut all the listings and I'm like, it's not a failure yet. You had data points saying, people use the listing. Go do a study again without the listing. And if is there less usage of this guide. Are there more people complaining? Are people going to other sources now and abandoning this one? I'm like, data is eventually going to win, but meet people where they are and keep going. You just have to be there. It's not going to be like, boosh, I turned a corner and everything we're going to be done is like these data sources. Be very patient with explaining things, and how data works, in not a techno jargon way. Really understand it in a way that you can explain it to someone simply and purely, and that it's really, and be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of it, and go forward accordingly, and then explain it and keep trying. You're going to get there. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [15:15]: I want to echo what Anna's saying about understanding the data, Mark. I think the challenge is, particularly as data sources begin to proliferate and diversify and we're getting them from lots of different places, you need to understand that data and the reliability of it, the validity of it. Is it measuring which you actually want to measure? You should be asking those questions of the people who are helping you design. If it's a bespoke study, if it's coming from a large data set, you need to have the confidence to ask those questions. There are no stupid questions when it comes to data. And if someone is not able to answer those questions for you in a satisfactory way and explain it to you, then I would be a little cautious about using that, because someone's going to ask you those questions, and you need to be able to answer those questions about where it comes from. What does it mean? Are we measuring what we think we measure? 

Anna Blount [16:05]: I actually have a comment on this. You have to work together as vendors. About 25% of my life is working with other vendors, because every destination has multiple vendors and multiple data types. And since I'm the expert in my data type and they're the experts in theirs, we work together to help the destination clients we have in common to have a more holistic view of things and how our data intersects. And like, maybe you should look at the survey for this, but maybe you should look at geolocation data for that, for an example. And if you have vendors who aren't willing to do that, you need to get new vendors. Like, you're hiring a dream team of research and data people in order to help and assist you. They need to play together on the same court in order to benefit you and to get you to where you need to go. Be strategically and through advocacy. So really emphasizing teamwork and having those vendors go the extra mile to do that work where it's like, here's how my data intersects with this data, with that data, with this. That is not an unrealistic expectation today. And those are the people who know the data best. And if you don't feel your vendors do know the data, get another vendor. You know what I mean? Like, it's okay, pick the vendors and the data that you feel you trust. That's so important, because if you don't really trust that data, you're not going to use it. Get data you can trust for the questions you really need answered. 

Mark Lapidus [17:16]: I should know the answer to this question, I don't. I've worked in travel for about ten years now, and I have no idea how many destinations have research directors and how many don't. 

Anna Blount [17:25]: If it's a larger destination, we'll have one, but if it's a smaller destination, no, they don't. And I will say more and more of our talent is getting leeched out of the destination research space for higher paying areas like, you know, medical. 

Mark Lapidus [17:36]: Oh, that's bad. 

Anna Blount [17:37]: Yes. And so when you lose a destination researcher, it's hard to fill. Especially now that people- remote work is less and less. If I have to be in a certain destination, that bank of people who actually know about destination research enough to be that VP level, to be that Director level, is just smaller and smaller and smaller. So as some destinations increasingly don't have a researcher on staff, it's more important than ever to be able to have this vend- these vendors partnerships to help you out with your organization. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [18:01]: And it should be an organization-wide effort to understand that data. Because everyone should be using it, accessing it. Anyone may get a question about it. They don't have to know all the nitty-gritty specifics of it, but they should feel confident in that data too. Not just someone whose job, quote unquote, it is to be the research person. It's really a resource for everybody. 

Anna Blount [18:21]: Gatekeeping is going to keep you from being a data-driven organization. If you have one person who's hoarding the information and just handing it out like party favors, that is not what should be happening. Data should be going into all the decisions that are being answered across the board in a destination. And that means that research needs to be weaved into that as well. 

Mark Lapidus [18:39]: Since you work at a university, how many kids are coming in now that are interested in tourism research? 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [18:44]: Oh, great question. Very few of them are starting with an interest in tourism research. 

Mark Lapidus [18:50]: So once they meet you, they change their mind. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [18:52]: I try. No, it's actually really exciting. I've been teaching for over a decade now, between Virginia Tech and North Carolina state, and it is really thrilling to watch students become aware of the importance of analytics, I think because it's just sort of permeated society as a whole. We have more access to data and people know what's out there. Once students are able to sort of see where that fits into tourism, and I show that by bringing researchers from tourism into the classroom. Hailey Post, who is a data analyst for the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau, she comes into my classroom and tells them, "What is my job?" And they really light up when they can see someone doing that. Many of them will then go into doing independent research projects with me as an undergraduate research assistant or with our other faculty members. I sent my very best one over to Longwoods, Alyssa Stroker, now working with them. She was my first undergraduate research assistant and actually got to do data collection and analysis with me for some of the funded projects that I had at NC State. And that's where it really clicks. I teach a class in research methods, we actually call it our evidence-based decision making in parks, recreation, tourism, sport management. But I'm teaching them how to write a survey, how to do basic descriptive statistics, how to conduct a focus group or interviews, do qualitative analysis. And I'll say, you know, students come out of that realizing that maybe it's not the job they want to do 100%, but they know the importance of data and using that in the decisions that they want to make. It's really important for curriculum to have that element in it, because regardless of where they go - of course I want them all to go into tourism - but if they wind up in sport, if they wind up in park, they're still going to need data to make those decisions. 

Mark Lapidus [20:29]: How do you suggest local DMO's work with their universities in their cities? 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [20:32]: Thank you for asking that, Mark, that is an area that we really, really can do more to develop those relationships. And that is where your students are going to get great experiences; that's where they're going to have a valuable internship opportunity. A lot of it is that first meeting of getting down, sitting down face to face and talking to each other. Don't just do it over email. Go to campus, invite them to your office. Those faculty members or students, more than likely, if you have a tourism program at a local university, they're going to have some sort of student club for students that are interested in that. And I have done multiple tours with our GRCVB with our state tourism office, Visit North Carolina, to actually show the students what that looks like. And that really goes a long way. Providing those experiences for students is a great way to start. Universities are also a great space to bounce ideas off about research. Faculty at like a research-run university, where I'm at at North Carolina State, I think research is 30% of my job. I think about it a lot. And if you're interested in thinking about some of these things that we've talked about today, the reliability, the validity, reach out to your faculty members, ask them and say, "Hey, I want to talk to you about research." I guarantee you they will be excited to do that. 

Anna Blount [21:41]: And another space to do that is TTRA International, where we have university members and also DMO members. So it's a place where we have a conference every year, the international conference, usually in the summer. We're able to get these people together, and we do think tanks like this, where Whitney's academic and I'm a vendor on the practitioner side, but we're able to collaborate through these projects with other people who are in TTRA. And so the more you can get involved in that association that has the common ground for both the universities and for the DMO's, I think that you're gonna have great results on that, because again, even just being in the same room and having different ideas about qualitative research or things that I'm doing, and maybe that's gonna help Whitney. And, you know, we need that collaboration and open space to be able to have that, because we want to advance how we're using research and how we're using data, and the only way we can do that is having conversations, crossing our little verticals, right? We need to look at this holistically, as everybody in the destination space together, so that way we can solve problems that are permeating throughout the destination space. 

Mark Lapidus [22:34]: Well, the clock on the wall says it's lunchtime, and I heard somebody's stomach make a little noise. Maybe it was mine, I'm not really sure, I'm not saying. So I want to thank you both for dropping by the podcast booth here at Destinations International. 

Anna Blount [22:45]: Thank you. 

Dr. Whitney Knollenberg [22:46]: Thanks for having us, Mark. 

Mark Lapidus [22:47]: And that's Brand USA Talks Travel, live from Destinations International's annual convention in Tampa, Florida. More episodes to follow. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening. 

Outro [22:56]: If you enjoyed this Live From Destinations International episode, please share it with your friends in the travel industry. Production and music by Asher Meerovich. Media producer, Nthanze Kariuki, with assistance from Casey D'Ambra. Engineering, Brian Watkins, Kat Pommer, and Antonio Tyler. Art by Mimi Jung. Special thanks to Alexis Adelson, Phil Dickieson, Peter Dodge, and Colleen Mangone. More Live From Destinations International episodes coming soon. Safe travels!

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