July 12, 2018
It’s been a great week! Thankfully the Southern California heat wave took a break while we have descended on Anaheim for the 2018 Destinations International Annual Convention. For the second year in a row, we hosted our Insights Summit, to share our latest insights and best practices, and connect with destination marketers.
We launched our newest research at our Insights Summit, an extension of our previous Multi-National Travel Trends Study, this time examining the online behavior of travelers from Latin America. The research illustrates the complex and time-consuming purchase journey of digital travelers in key markets such as Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, and uncovered some interesting findings. Did you know that travelers from these countries on average take longer trips than anyone globally? And, they are more likely to travel domestically than internationally? Learn more about these traveler’s behaviors by downloading the new study here.
We introduced Tammy Snow, director of user research at Expedia Group’s Innovation Lab, who shared the science of mind reading. Attendees got an inside look at the Innovation Lab, where researchers like Tammy track their subjects’ emotions in real time to gauge their responses from looking at different experiences like travel photos or videos, to online shopping. Expedia Group, and the team at Expedia Group Media Solutions use the findings from the lab to help influence design and product development to create dynamic experiences for consumers and advertisers alike.
Next, our experts revealed the latest insights and reporting capabilities marketers can expect from our first-party data—allowing industry decision-makers to transform these insights into action. Bolstered by our research, our digital advertising tools for destination marketers empowers you to engage travelers throughout the consumer journey—from inspiration to in-trip.
And to wrap up our Insights Summit, Theresa Belpulsi of Destination DC, Jessica Shultz from MMGY, Colette Jones of Destination Cleveland and our own Wendy Olson Killion took to the stage to participate in a panel discussion, led by our leader Hari Nair, on the importance of data for the destination marketer, sharing best practices on how data has transformed their marketing strategies.
If you were not able to make it this year to our Insights Summit, we hope to catch you at an event soon. Remember to subscribe to our blog to get our latest industry insights!