Here’s How DMOs Can Promote Your Tourism Business More Effectively

Tourism businesses owners throughout the world belong to Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) to help them reach bigger audiences than they’d ever be able to on their own—that’s the incredible power of these orgs.

Not only are they fiercely dedicated to you, their members, but they are incredible marketers—generating interest in your business using content marketing and social media ads as well as attending trade shows, producing guides, and hosting media and influencers throughout the year.

But they don’t actually close the sale—they can get hundreds of thousands of people to their website, and tens of thousands of people looking at your business there. They can get media and influencers to visit your business and post about it on social, with hundreds and thousands of people loving the pictures and videos they share. They can shake hands with hundreds of visitors to trade shows, and hand out thousands of guides with your business listing—and run tens of thousands of dollars worth of paid ads on campaigns highlighting your—and others businesses—in your region. 

But for the customers they get “on the hook,” there is no clear path forward. They might Google you next and see if they can book with you…but they might not. 

With Booker, we set your business up with a modern Booking solution that embeds directly into your site, with experts on our team setting it up for you—and the best part is, your DMO can now sell your business directly too. 

As the DMO does its marketing—like posting on social to its tens of thousands of followers, or writing blog posts for its site, or spending thousands of dollars sending traffic to its site that sees hundreds of thousands of visitors a year—it can now offer consumers direct access to booking at your property. 

Finally DMOs can compete with the Expedia’s and AirBNBs of the world, while showing all of their instantly bookable inventory across the region. And since they can see how effective their marketing is at driving those bookings, they become more active and accountable in ensuring they’re spending their resources wisely—making sure that it results in actual dollars and sense coming through your doors. 

Take a look at one of our first clients—Among The Trees. 

Visitors to the website can click the Book Now button and easily and quickly complete a booking right there on your site. 

Among The Trees probably gets about a thousand visits a month. They’re just getting started on social media, but they are producing great content there, and probably have a couple thousand followers.

But they are also members of Northeastern Ontario Tourism and Indigenous Tourism Ontario. Northeastern Ontario is also a contributor to a bigger regional site called Northern Ontario Travel.

Above is the story on Northern Ontario Travel. Click the Book Now button and Booker appears—where the visitor can now book directly with your property.

Same goes for their listing Northeastern Ontario:

Click the Book Now button and your inventory is immediately available to customers.

So now, these places can have a book now button that allows them to have a direct connection with your inventory—live. 

It's not a separate booking engine, it's your booking engine, on their site. 

No double bookings, and instantly bookable from anywhere. Eventually customers will go to destination sites like they go to hotel booking sites, and be able to look for exactly what they want and book it immediately. 

Another example is Indigenous Experiences Ontario—an example of what will soon be the reality—customers can see all the businesses an organization represents, and filter through them. Currently only Among the Trees is live, but soon all of these businesses will be—and ready to book right away. Just click on the Book Now button.

DMOs have significant budgets, just like AirBNB, Expedia, etc. But most of the marketing they do now is around awareness, not conversions. Once they’re able to showcase all of their members, ready to book on any page of their site, through their social or in their email newsletters—or even on a tablet or computer when they go to consumer shows—their marketing efforts will have that much more value for your business. And because they are your community organization, you know that they’ll be more likely to represent your business to the right audience—they know the target market. 

So book a call with our Customer Success Specialist today—we’re ready to get you started on this exciting new journey with Booker!