Destination marketing constantly evolves. What started as the old brick and mortar visitor centres are today’s digital counterparts with sophisticated social media services and provider links with an array of products. We are looking at another shift today with the idea of a destination marketplace, where all the destination’s members or providers can take part in a live marketplace. So what’s difference from a standard ecommerce website and a destination marketplace? In a word, interconnectivity.
A destination marketplace is just that, a place where buyers and sellers can meet and exchange. So imagine a situation where a bed and breakfast gets an order for a two night stay. By being part of the destination marketplace the buyer can then seamlessly go on to consider a city pass, tickets to a festival and a ride up the hill on the funicular. But what is really cool about this is that the buyer has never left the bed and breakfast’s website and the bnb has probably earned some additional revenue from commissions.
In this marketplace, it does not matter how the customer finds their way in. If they come in by searching for “what to do in”, or from a visitor centre kiosk, or a search for accommodation, any participant in the network can be the entry point.
The variations are countless and everyone benefits from the marketplace, so we used the name Simbiosis for our unique booking software module that controls the booking, buying and selling.
Simbiosis works as a full funnel booking software that can plug into existing websites with no complicated coding.
If you’d like to explore more on this, please contact us.