State Tourism Office Website User & Conversion Study

Cooperative Research Program

Destination Analysts will conduct a Website User and Conversion Study on the consumer sites of participating State Tourism Offices as part of a cooperative research effort to develop profiles of travelers who use these official destination websites and estimate the Return on Investment these websites bring to their respective state’s economies.

While each participating State Tourism Office will receive an individual research study and custom report, the anonymized aggregate data from all participants’ findings will provide important benchmarks on state tourism website site performance and the overall impact of investing in this tourism marketing asset.

Key Objectives & Outcomes

  • Determine Website Return on Investment: The total amount of direct visitor spending in the state that is generated by and attributable to the state tourism office’s consumer website, g. “In the past year, the website generated $X million in in incremental direct visitor spending in the state” “Every true, unique visitor to the website results in $X in direct visitor spending impact to the state.”
  • Develop Website User Profile(s):  Demographic, psychographic, attitudinal and behavioral information—including point in travel consideration process, type of traveler, media accessed, desired travel/destination experiences, as well as content sought and intended tasks on the site.
  • Report Comprehensive and Detailed Key Site Performance Metrics: Using combined user survey and Google Analytics data, analyze and report site performance and user behavior by critical user segments, e.g. compare the time on site, top pages engaged with by those undecided on the destination vs. those already decided, residents vs out- of-state site users.
  • Understand the Mobile User In-Depth: Develop a more comprehensive understanding of the motivations of state tourism site users on mobile devices and explore behavioral, profile and ROI differences of this user group versus traditional device users.
  • Benchmarks on State Tourism Office Website Performance: Aggregated, anonymized data from all participating state tourism office sites will create benchmarks for future performance evaluation and measurement.
Above: Example of findings from Google Analytics

How it Works

Destination Analysts will use a custom dual survey approach—comprised of a Website User Intercept Survey randomly intercept users as they enter the website and a Website User Follow-up Survey sent via an email invitation the month after the website visitor identified that they would likely have visited the state —to develop a user profile and estimate incremental visitation and economic impact to the participating state from their website.  Participating state tourism offices have the option to add one custom question to the end of the Website User Intercept Survey and up to two custom questions to the latter part of the Website User Follow-Up Survey.

Destination Analysts will manage all aspects of the research process.  Minimal to no state tourism office staff time will be required.

Above: Screenshot of the Website User Intercept Survey pop-up invitation on the homepage of SFTravel.com

Deliverables

        • Quarterly interim reports
        • Comprehensive final report including: Executive Summary, Infographic Summary, ROI Summary & Metrics, Key Performance Metrics, Mobile Segmentation and Performance Analysis
        • Anonymized comparison matrix on site performance

How to Participate

The total project fee for this study—including all deliverables and incentives—is $18,500.

A detailed overview document on this project is available here

Should you have any questions please email them to Kimberly@destinationanalysts.com .