We are excited by this year’s Cineposium agenda, writes Geoff Wilcock.
The key areas we have sought to understand are there:
- Film-induced tourism
- Regional collaboration
- Co-production
- Demonstrating value
- Marketing of agencies and offices.
By definition, film tourism is likely to be delivered through a portal and so I’ve been doing a lot of desktop research recently on tourism portals. It has led me to understand the value of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs). DMOs are essentially formed by tourism businesses in an area (sometimes with public sector support) whereas, all too often, a portal is setup from the top down.
It is impossible to stimulate the involvement and commitment of front-line tourism businesses from the top. The best approach is to give them the means to work towards a common goal. Even in the unlikely event a central portal raises world awareness it cannot sustain dealing with it. The market always wins in the long run; unless it makes sense for tourism businesses to get involved it is not sustainable from the centre. My example of how not to do it is www.visiteurope.com!
My message is borne of experience from when we first set up web sites and Intranets over thirteen years ago. You have to empower those involved to help create something worthwhile. Otherwise, it eventually runs out of steam.
Does anyone know of any web sites / portals in that category?