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For vacation properties and destination marketers, having good data on target markets can mean more cost-effective advertising, more reservations and an economic boost for the community.

Having even basic guest data — such as where guests come from, how long they stay and how far in advance they book — can make a big difference.

But getting that data, especially for an entire vacation community, can be difficult. It takes buy-in from property managers. And if properties use a variety of different property management software packages, it can be next to impossible.

Thanks to Lodgical Solution, the Door County Visitor Bureau in Door County, Wis., has been able to leap that hurdle over the past few years.

Destination marketing

The Visitor Bureau serves as Door County's destination marketing organization, or DMO. Most vacation properties in Door County use Lodgical Solution as their property management software.

So when the Visitor Bureau approached Bay Lakes Information Systems several years ago about getting better data for its marketing efforts, we were able to pull data (with property managers' permission) from not just one property, but a wide swath of the vacation community.

The result, as described in a recent Destination Think! article, is a "data holy grail."

"Imagine being able to see exactly where your visitors come from, where they stay, and how much money they spend," the article says. "Your marketing dollars don’t slip through your fingers, because your team can watch how effective their campaigns are on an interactive map. Better intel means that you feel more confident, make better decisions and have happier stakeholders.

The Lodgical Solution data includes key pieces of information from each reservation, such as the guest's ZIP code, arrival and departure dates, and the date of booking.

We make sure all the data we provide is anonymous, so marketers never see the names or any other identifying information of any guest.

But when that data is aggregated, it allows destination marketers to pinpoint target markets and make more informed decisions. The Visitor Bureau, for example, uses the data to create interactive heat maps, showing concentrations of Door County visitors from different target markets.

"The data enabled us to analyze new markets and show us current concentrations of visitors," Visitor Bureau President and CEO Jack Moneypenney said in the article. "This helped us make a good decision to pursue new markets. It helped us understand what areas look like, where we are spending larger dollar volumes on internet, print or TV marketing."

Michelle Rasmusson, the Visitor Bureau's director of sales and marketing, agreed.

"The data has helped us hone in on where we should be placing our marketing dollars because we no longer have to guess or rely on trial and error," she told Destination Think!.

Property marketing

With permission from Door County property managers, Bay Lakes has just released another round of data to the Visitor Bureau.

This year, we're also offering something directly to property managers: a set of analytics similar to what the Visitor Bureau gets, but at the property level. That data will allow managers at individual properties to make the same kind of informed marketing decisions that have been so beneficial to the Visitor Bureau.

Much of this is only possible because of Door County's high adoption rate of Lodgical Solution. In other words, the greater the percentage of properties in your area that use Lodgical Solution, the better your data will be.

If you're interested in what Lodgical Solution's marketing data can do for you, please don't hesitate to give us a call at 920.746.0606.

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