In an ever-changing industry, the Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference (GovCon) helps inspire and inform tourism professionals and industry leaders. As a Colorado Tourism Office social media strategy subject matter expert, I was excited to attend the 2023 event in Fort Collins, Colorado.
My three days were filled with networking, notes, and exploring Fort Collins’s beautiful outdoor spaces. Weren’t able to attend this year’s event? Here are my top three takeaways from the event.
1. Leverage Your Destination’s Story
During the Colorado Tourism Office’s Destination Management Success Stories session, Brian Bartlett from Mesa Verde Country shared their success in identifying local stories to champion the value of responsible tourism.
The initial tourism lure for Mesa Verde Country is the Mesa Verde National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. To help leverage their hook and increase responsible tourism in all seasons, they enlisted local support by capturing local stories.
With a goal of “no voice left behind,” they embarked on a storytelling survey outreach program to discover stories so everyone in their community felt included. In their efforts to capture all stories, they even visited nursing homes and attended family reunions.
By focusing on the stories of their community members they discovered that:
- Every element of their community had a story to tell.
- Younger generations were amazed and inspired by the stories from past generations.
- By telling their stories, community members felt that they had more buy-in with destination tourism.
From the stories they collected, they identified themes, priorities, and key partners to help promote them. They were also able to validate stories, weaving them into historical information, and featuring them at high-trafficked sites, like cultural centers.
2. Community Engagement Impacts Tourism Success
We’ve all experienced visiting a destination, bumping into a local resident, or overhearing a conversation about how crowded the place is or how visitors are overrunning the place.
These tiny moments can have a big impact on a visitor’s perception and overall destination travel experience. Additionally, residents begin living in a constant state of disdain for visitors, tourism efforts, and the place they call home.
Only 29% of U.S. residents feeling included and consulted about tourism.
During the Community Engagement: Global Best Practice for Colorado panel, Miles Partnership unpacked the importance of engaging community members. With only 29% of U.S. residents feeling included and consulted about tourism, identifying “hot button” issues and consulting residents can help champion the value of tourism and increase a sustainable experience for visitors and a quality place to live for residents.
In their case study, the Breckenridge Tourism Office shared how they’ve been leveraging community engagement through their destination stewardship plan since in 2017. They’ve focused on giving their community a voice and resources by focusing on these three areas:
- Supporting the workforce through their Breck 101 guest-service training program.
- Inspire community engagement by working with HOAs and partners to increase resident survey responses.
- Better understand complaints by asking residents for their opinions on the value of events or the value of tourism.
3. Prioritize Social-First Video for Destinations
To truly inspire engagement and video views on social media, destinations need to focus on creating social-first videos versus trying just to cut previously recorded videos for social media.
During the MMGY Global session, social producer Andrew Shepheard shared recommendations to create engaging social media videos, following these four steps.
1. Start With Understanding Trends
The first tip is to watch short-form videos like Reels and TikToks at least once per week. By watching content, destinations will have a better understanding of trending content themes and audio. Both of these are triggers for platform algorithms to increase video reach.
2. Identify Content Themes For Your Destination
Once you have an understanding of what Reels are trending for your audience, identify seasonal content themes you can capture. For example, listicle videos like the Top 5 Hidden Gems or 5 Things to Know Before Visiting.
3. Activate a Social Shoot
Using the content list, capture vertical video on your phone specifically for social media. Because the thumbnail is a critical element of the video, during this shoot also capture vertical images as thumbnail options. According to Andrew, he captures 150 clips at each destination shoot which is enough content to create around 3 short-form videos.
4. Edit Videos Using Helpful Tools
Once video content is captured, upload the videos to folders organized by date or location. To maximize video content, use tools like Canva or CapCut to easily create multiple videos for each platform.
What Did You Learn at GovCon 2023?
Did you attend the 2023 Colorado Governor’s Tourism Conference? I’d love to hear your key takeaways. Share them below in the comments or send me a note.
