Positioning Hilo as a Heritage & Arts Destination

Welcome to Work Session 1

Tell me a little about you

NameAffiliation

Who Are We?

David BucyMary BucySpecialists in developing effective

communication strategies

So What!!!

We are off-island haoles. You will always know more about Hilo than either of us ever will.

What’s my point?

We are not here to tell you what to do.

Our approach is to add our knowledge to yours to help you make decisions on effectively marketing Hilo.

Ground Rules

You will ask questions.You will engage in discussion and stick up for your views. You will stay on task.You will reach informed consent (hopefully).

At the end of this workshop, participants will:

1. Have an action plan for improving the product (the experience) and for developing effective marketing strategies.

2. Have the basis for a tool kit for developing a unified set of marketing strategies.

How are we going to get there?By having you go through a series of planning steps to arrive at conclusions regarding actions and marketing.

Our Role

Facilitate the process

We may be irritating!

Let’s get started

Leave illusions behind

It doesn’t matter if you like it

Humor the off-island haoles

“The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the world, continents and oceans was not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.”Daniel Boorstein

We typically design for who we know best - ourselves

But it doesn’t really matter if you like it.

Humor us

We don’t know what you know, but we need to know some of it in order to work with you.

To find out, we are going to go through some information that you have already gone over.

The importance of lining up the ducks

Brings us up to speed

Puts everyone on the same page

Planning is not a democratic process!

All decisions derived from and defended by:

Goals and desired outcomes

They determine:Target marketsParametersOpportunities

Goals and Outcomes – Why are you doing this?

As a result of our efforts to position Hilo as a destination for heritage and arts travelers, the following positive outcomes will occur:

Work Session – Desired Outcomes

Discuss, summarize and prioritize

Ultimate Goal and Desired Outcome

Sustain your lifestyle

What does that mean?

You should not do anything that negatively impacts that lifestyle.

You should figure out what to do that will enhance and preserve that lifestyle.

How Does Tourism Fit?

Good question

Tourism is a tool to help sustain your community.

Key Point

If the goal is to sustain your lifestyle, you cannot change your lifestyle to accommodate tourists because you live the product you sell.

Key Point

You will live the product you sell, so make sure you sell the product you want to live.

What is the Hilo Experience you want to sell?

Describe, summarize

Essence of the experience

Experience your story and lifestyle because your lifestyle is just the current chapter in an ongoing story of how the land has shaped the people who live here.

A visitor has to understand your story to understand your lifestyle.

Key Point

You are not going to change your lifestyle in significant ways so you have to find a market that wants to “buy” the experience of mingling with you and sharing your story and lifestyle.

You don’t want tourists!

You want guests!!

What is a heritage and arts traveler?

Key Set of Questions

What are your desired outcomes from marketing Hilo to this group of people?What does a “heritage and arts”traveler look for?What is the context in which you must compete for this person’s time?What do you have to sell?How do you improve your product to sell it to this market?

Examples of Desired Outcomes

Increased visitation (with decrease in visitation by others?)Changes in visitation patterns? (Single visit, seasonality, etc.)Increased use of underused attractions? (what are they?)Increased length of stay? (how long?)

What are the desired outcomes from this traveler?

What does this traveler look for?

Perhaps a better question . . .

How will they go about the process of choosing Hilo as a destination?

A simple cost benefit analysis

The key to attracting visitors

People analyze the perceived cost of a trip against the perceived benefit and compare the result with other options for spending their valuable resources, most notably, time.

If you want to increase attraction power

Increase the perceived benefit and/or decrease the perceived cost as defined by your target market!

But getting them here is not enough

Successful tourism is all about attraction and holding power. It is also about customer loyalty.

How do you get holding power and loyalty?

Make sure you meet their expectations for benefits and costs.

Summary

People will choose to come based on their perception of the cost compared to the benefit. People will choose to come back and/or to market the experience to friends based on the actual cost compared to the benefit.

Consequence

Truth in marketing.Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.

What do we need to know about the target market?

What they consider benefit and what they consider cost.

Let’s start by looking at the categories or types of items they assess.

Visitor Experience Model

Benefits

The experience itself – the opportunity to immerse themselves physically, emotionally and intellectually in your story – past, present and future.

Can they do this now?

What do you need to do to make this more accessible? To increase the benefits?

From my perspective

Tell your story (and tell it at the story sites)

Increase awareness of and ease of access to story sites

What are story sites?

People do not believe what they cannot see, sooooo . . .

Don’t try to tell them something they cannot see in the surrounding environment.

Key Point

Every environment tells a story. Tell those stories and you will have a much better chance of succeeding.

High Visual Context

Low Visual Context

The ‘Ugly’ Site

Seeping and Piping

Incised pumice canyons

Miniature model

Bowerman Barn

Key Point

You don’t interpret features – you use features to tell a story. That is why historic sites are of more interest than museums.

What are costs to a traveler?

Which of those are unnecessary costs?

What can you do to decrease unnecessary costs?

From my perspective

Trip planning, orientation and wayfinding network needs work.

Summary of Costs and Benefits

Congratulations!

You now have the basis of an action plan focused on product development.

Let’s turn to marketing

Product developmentProduct marketing

Image is everything!

Key Point

People make decisions based on perceptions, which are in the form of images.

Marketing is about using everything at your disposal to create a compelling, accurate image that appeals to your market.

Let’s define the essence of that image

Choose 3 adjectives or short phrases that describe the experience you want to sell.

I would have to describe my experience in Hilo as really . . . ____________??____________

Work session on descriptors

Present and prioritize

The descriptors are the basis of the tool kit of marketing elements

They are the essence of your brand.

Translating your brand into product and marketing

Who does it and what is your role?

Others will help translate the brand into elements, but you are the key.

Your role is to enforce the guidelines

A Primer on the process

Where are we now?

You have defined the productYou have defined the marketYou have determined how to make it more attractive.You have determined the basis for your tool kit.But what about reaching the market?

To market effectively

You need to determine where these people are getting the information to decide on and plan trips.

Do you know this?

Your task

Must build an information network, beginning with marketing, that takes them from the ultimate starting point to the story point.

Information networks

Starting Points

Places where people are beginning their experience.

Story Points

Places you can “see” the story, and therefore, tell that story. . . or experience that story.

Get people from starting to story points

A key tool in that journey

A series of information strategies that form a complete network.

Key point

Information is most likely to be used if it offered at the point it is most useful.

The tip of the icebergMarketingTrip PlanningWayfindingSite specific orientation and wayfinding to lodgingSite specific trip planningWayfinding to story siteTell the storyMarket the next story site

A good information network

AttractPlanGuideReassureEnrich

In essence

Lowers the cost and increases the benefit.

The most cost effective tool you can develop.

What Happens Now?

I process, explore, ponder, discuss and summarize.

Present a summary of what I heard in terms of the brand of the experience, the actions for developing the product and the actions for developing the marketing of that product.

Questions?

Mahalo!