Final assignment. Tourism 2.0

FINAL ASSIGNMENT Tourism 2.0 Casamor Roura, Imma Clares Góngora, Mariona García López, Cristina Sanz Salvat, Eduard Universitat de Girona – Facultat de Turisme

Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

Index 1.

2.

3.

Introduction .........................................................................................................................3 1.1

Information of the region .............................................................................................3

1.2

Scotland’s Target ..........................................................................................................3

1.3

Target’s Motivation ......................................................................................................4

Analysis and diagnosis of the present situation ...................................................................6 2.1

SWOT analysis ..............................................................................................................6

2.2

Differentiation of the website for tourists and professionals .......................................6

2.3

Website distributions and what kind of things they offer and present ........................7

2.4

Online Marketing........................................................................................................10

2.5

Responsive webpage? ................................................................................................11

2.6

Differences of the webpage in terms of the niche .....................................................12

2.7

Activity of the social media channels .........................................................................13

2.8

Analysis of the differences with respect to the competence .....................................14

Social media plan ...............................................................................................................16 3.1

Introduction of the group ...........................................................................................16

3.2

Strategies....................................................................................................................16

3.2.1

Strategy 1 ...........................................................................................................16

3.2.2

Strategy 2 ...........................................................................................................21

3.2.3

Strategy 3 ...........................................................................................................22

3.3

Implementation and control ......................................................................................25

4.

Conclusions ........................................................................................................................30

5.

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................32

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

1. Introduction 1.1 Information of the region When you think about Scotland, immediately comes into your mind the words like: nature, highlands, men who wear kilt and their typical drink, whiskey. But of course there is more things to do, to visit and to enjoy. In fact we could divide the country into three areas: the Southern Uplands, the Central Lowlands and the northern Highlands and the Islands.

Scotland is an established tourist destination. The service sector creates moreover 200,000 jobs. In the area there are some types of tourism, but types which are growing up are golf, fishing and gastronomy.

Scotland has good infrastructures and is connected to England by road, rail and air. The airports of Glasgow, Prestwick, Edinburgh and Aberdeen are the main gateways in Scotland, with a growing network of destinations.

1.2 Scotland’s Target When we talk about the target of Scotland we base on the data from 2014. We can see the average of people that comes into Scotland and where they come from: Country of Residence Trips 2014 (million) Trips (%) 2014 Nights 2014 (million) Scotland 6,51 41,95 19,13 England 5,57 35,89 21,42 Wales 0,43 2,77 1,05 Total Great Britain 12,51 80,61 41,60 Northern Ireland 0,31 2,00 1,17 Total Overseas 2,70 17,40 21,52 TOTAL OVERNIGHT 15,52 100,00 64,29 Source: VisitScotland and GBTS/IPS/NISRA. Analysing the average, we can see that the 80,61% of people comes from nearby areas of Great Britain. More precisely, nearly a 42% of visitors are domestic tourism. The number of visitors that comes from foreign countries it is not too big, but we have to keep in mind that this one stays more nights than the domestic ones.

A research from VisitScotland 2014 segmentation indicates, in this order, which tourists from USA, Germany, France, Australia and the Netherlands are into the top five countries that visit more Scotland.

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

1.3 Target’s Motivation We are going to talk about the motivation of this top five that we have mentioned in the section above.  Americans travelling abroad are interested in history, culture and nature when they are choosing the destination. And the language is not a barrier to Americans visiting Scotland.  For the Germans travellers it is really important the nature and environment.  When French visitors go to Scotland, they are typically couples or singles travelling without children. They also tend to be from a higher socioeconomic groups, affluent professionals and many of them are resident in the large conurbations of France. Moreover, French travellers are interested in culture, history and heritage when travelling abroad.  The most important factors for holidays include scenic beauty, history & culture and welcoming people. So, Australian visitors to Scotland have strong friends and family connections, and are more than likely than other long haul markets to be on a repeat visit to Scotland, possibly influenced by current connections with Scotland.  Dutch visitors to Scotland are typically well-educated, well-off couples with an interest in culture, environment and nature/wildlife. Lots of them know the country in a perfect way. About key factors that influence their holiday’s choice are rest, recreation, sun & beach and visiting friends and relatives. Nature is also a bigger influence than in many other European countries.

Scotland divide its target into 5 different groups:     

Adventure Seekers Curious Travellers Engaged Sightseers Food-Loving Culturalists Natural Advocates

The Adventure Seekers are typically energetic, sociable, career minded individuals with an urban outlook. More than a half of them are under 35 years old and the 33% come from the UK (plus 12% that are from Scotland). Moreover, Adventure Seekers are typically early adopters of mobile and new technology. They are very confident users of the internet and social media and they like to plan their holidays based in photos of their friends.

The Curious Travellers have a great curiosity about the world and look to broaden their minds by trying new things. They are typically free spirits who enjoy living life to the full.

They are concentrated in the middle age (from 30 to 44 years old). An interesting point

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

of these target is that more than 76% of them have an active social media account.

The Engaged Sightseers are typically down-to-earth individuals who may be quite ‘traditional’ in their outlook and fairly settled in their lifestyles. They may be cautious in some ways, for example when providing personal data to companies or when sharing financial data over the internet. The 57% of them are over 55 years old. 67% do have an active social media account but their activity is mainly focused on sharing with friends and family via Facebook, rather than engaging with brands or using a variety of social media platforms.

The Food-Loving Culturalists like to be seen and to be influential amongst their friends.

They are typically professional, career minded and discerning individuals. A passion for food and drink is an important part of their lifestyle. Moreover, they like to plan their holidays with enough time. An aspect to remark is that they are heavy internet users, 87% of them have an active social media account.

The Natural Advocates are typically more introverted individuals who value peace and quiet. Confident in themselves and what they want out of life, Natural Advocates don’t follow the crowds. The majority fall into 35-54 years old. Natural Advocates are average users of the internet and social media. Facebook and Twitter are the two most common, however, 29% do not currently have a social media account, slightly higher than average.

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

2. Analysis and diagnosis of the present situation 2.1 SWOT analysis This SWOT analysis will help us to summarise the current situation of Scotland. The SWOT analysis includes the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Strengths  Scotland brand well-known.  Strong economy.  Hard-wearing businesses and higher employment.  Powerful community.  Strong tourism and food and drinks sectors.  Natural resources.  Cultural and historical assets.

Opportunities  Potential to enhance broadband coverage.  Possibility to maintain rural communities.  Potential to further utilize Scotland’s natural environment and heritage.  Opportunity to support projects to improve economic growth.  Potential research and technology sectors.

Weaknesses  Population distribution.  Accessibility.  Lack of growth possibilities.  Access to finance, especially for small businesses and third sector.  Lack of participation and in-group works.  Low rural wage Threats  Recession of the population in rural areas, especially young people.  Cost increases and burdens (fuel costs, Air Passenger Duty …).  Competition.  Impact of the climate change in the agricultural sector.  Old population in rural areas may stop innovation and progress.

Source: The Scottish Government.

2.2 Differentiation of the website for tourists and professionals Scotland website is designed for four different users. The first one, www.visitscotland.com, it is aimed at tourists. Inside this website people who would like to visit Scotland can find any information about what to do, what to visit, and also to look for accommodation or restaurants. Furthermore, we have here direct links to social media profiles.

The second one is http://www.visitscotland.org/. This website is aimed at students and professionals. Inside this website we can find technical information such as tourism statistics or marketing campaigns; also, they give information for supporting those business that want to settle themselves in the region.

The third one is http://www.scotland.org/. This website is aimed at a general public, but focused on students and potential visitors. It gives information to experience, study, visit or live and work in Scotland.

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

Finally, the last website is www.conventionscotland.com. This website is designed for the tourism niche of MICE. Inside this website we can find all meetings, conferences, events, etc. that are celebrated in Scotland. Moreover, there is a news section.

2.3 Website distributions and what kind of things they offer and present In this section we are going to analyse the website distributions and what they offer in this page.

First of all, about the website distribution, since the Tourism Board have four different websites (the general, tourist, corporate and the convention site), we are going to focus on the tourist site, the main one, in its original English version.

As all the subpages have more or less the same information structure, we will concentrate on the homepage’s information distribution.

The first thing that attract our attention in the homepage is the headline:

Apart from the Tourism Board logotype and name of the webpage, we can differentiate three sections:  The first one will be a line of different links to useful services for the visitor (region map, brochure and newsletter signup) and the language tab with 15 languages: English (general, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), François, Deutsch, Nederland, Italian, Spanish, Chinese Cantonese and mandarin, Japanese, Russian and Portuguese.  The second row is constituted by the Social Media buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr) and the website searcher.  The third and main one is the line defined by the different section tabs, divided in: o The home button o Things to do (attractions/ activities/ events) o About (castles/ history/ nature/ food) o Accommodation (search and book engine) o Scotland’s regions (areas/ cities/ towns/ map) o Travel information (about Scotland/ practical information/ weather)

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As we can see, the headline is static within the pages of the website and gives to the user all the basic shortcuts to access to the website’s main information.

It is necessary to remark as well the lateral Feedback button; used to feedback a specific element or the whole webpage and to contact them. The negative thing of this contact section is that it sends you to a page in which they ask you to get in contact through email, without the option of an online chat or similar and quicker way to ask them anything.

The next thing we concentrate is the welcome text. In this short presentation text the region presents their main region attractions; for instance the scenery, culture, heritage and gastronomy (whisky), as well as informs about the website’s option to get travel advices and ideas.

Afterward, there is a news section in which stands out news, photographs and specific information according to each time period (for example, at the moment of doing this assignment it was winter and, for that reason, they highline winter festival events or winter guides), although there are information put in there only for their importance for the visitor how it can be gastronomy and the famous region of the Highlands.

Next to it we have the search and booking engine. Not only accommodation, but it also allows the user to search things to do (classified by category and place), events and food and drink places in the region and dates given.

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

Until now, we can confirm that Scotland’s website gives to the user not only information about the region and the things to do, but also closes the 5 stages of travel with allowing the visit to book their accommodation. The only thing it should be mentioned it is that most of the time, the website sends you to the establishment’s webpage in order to book the room or the service, sometimes making the Scotland’s page a mere bridge between the information and the booking.

A little bit under the booking engine, the symbol of TripAdvisor links us to Scotland’s TripAdvisor page. Just at its side, there is a quite unique, interesting thing that consists on an official grading system of VisitScotland, used as a mark of quality.

Scrolling past this section, we find a part of the page dedicated at showing the most important upcoming events of Scotland and at giving a taste of the kind of publications each main social media publishes (in this version of the page, the social media selected are Flickr, Facebook and Twitter).

Finally, the last part of the website is dedicated at offering the possibility again to subscribe to their newsletter and to search a specific Scotland’s Region. The last buttons are centred on the more technical features of the site how it can be the privacy and cookies, policies and accessibility or the site map; as we all the links to the general, professional and conferences site.

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2.4 Online Marketing In this section we are going to analyse the online and communication marketing strategy they follow.

Concentrating on their communication strategy, how VisitScotland presents its marketing to the world, it is necessary to mention firstly that their aim is to create and maintain a strong tourism brand for Scotland in their international markets.

In their communications; they focus on promoting the authentic and unique Scottish experiences in the global industry, differentiating Scotland from other countries. They also try to provide lots of practical information on how to get the most out of a visit to Scotland, through tips on what to see and do, among other useful guidance.

To ensure impact and brand awareness, they tend to use key themes, a tone of voice and visual cues, through different audiovisual formats including advertising, advertorial promotions, websites, direct marketing, Public Relations and exhibitions. Besides, they manage a strong database with which they communicate timely, using targeted messages which meet people’s information needs.

Now we are going to take a look on their online marketing actions. VisitScotland put most of their efforts in attracting their visitors through the net since over half of the people in many of their targets markets are online. Nowadays, the use of the Internet is very much generalized throughout all types of people and it is necessary to be where your market is. In addition, travel planning and booking is one of the most popular uses of the Internet and the destinations need to take this fact into account at the moment of planning their marketing strategies.

For the aforementioned reasons, VisitScotland concentrates on online marketing activities, offering their website in the language of each of their key markets and providing a mix of practical and inspiring information (awaking interest in visiting Scotland and allowing the users to plan their trip). They use as well newsletter to communicate regularly with their visitors, thanks to their database. Each newsletter’s content is tailored to each market and highline specific seasonal activities such as events or festivals. Finally they also use other online marketing techniques, for instance search engine marketing, online advertising and partner promotions in order to extend their activities.

Focusing on their international market, the most remarkable marketing campaign was one called “Meet the Scots”, that took place from January 2015 to early summer 2015.

This advertising campaign ran in North America, Germany, France, Australia and the Middle East and it used a group of 23 Scottish who each represented a different theme associated with Scottish tourism (for example, food and drink, Scotland’s culture or regional events). With the use of this ambassadors they intended to provide authenticity to the campaign and help to express the iconic aspect of Scotland in a personable and unique way.

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Final Assignment – Tourism 2.0

With this campaign, they had the objective to identify their visitors and get to make them come and repeat the visit in a future. They also intended to break the seasonality as well as promote all Scotland’s areas and encourage tourists to visit them.

2.5 Responsive webpage?

Our website (www.visitscotland.com) it is working responsibly for mobile phones. If you search the website in your mobile phone, you will find a version of the website adapted to your mobile. This is an important point for us because actually visitors or tourists are used to search with portable systems.

In contrast, we have not the same situation for tablets. If you search the website in your tablet, you will find the same version of the computer one.

Computer:

Mobile Phone:

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2.6 Differences of the webpage in terms of the niche The website is offered in 15 languages, depending on the target they want to reach: English community (United Kingdom and a general audience, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spaniard, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Portuguese.

We can see how the Tourism Board stands out different things depending on the niche’s preferences. A continuation we are going to see the differences on the website in the different languages of their main markets, that is to say in English ( the original site, for the United Kingdom and the general visitor), Spanish (for Spain and the Latin American countries), French (for France), Dutch (for the Netherlands) and in American English (for the United States).

United Kingdom (original website): for this market, they sell mainly scenery and gastronomy. The former it is shown by big images of nature, especially about the Highlands, and the latter it is due the commemoration of 2015 as the Year of Food & Drink, where they outline their most famous drinking: the Whisky. Because of the filming of the Macbeth film on this region, a little section of the news section it is dedicated at it. They also mention frequently culture, heritage and winter activities.

Finally, the front page highline 4 events (although you can see the whole list clicking a button) and at the bottom of the page they show some of their social media pages: Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

Spain: for the Spaniards the website goes in the same line that the original and promotes in first place nature and scenery, along with film locations, stylish shopping and events.

In the news section, most of the things shown are small news related to local and expert advices of the region, accommodation, family tourism, nature and heritage, golf, gastronomy, meet the locals and places related to the filming of TV series (such as Outlander).

In this version of the website, the Twitter hashtag (#lovescotland) it is not written in the photographs and the only social media shown are Flickr and Facebook (not Twitter, there is an advertisement in their place).

France: the website version for the French people is exactly the same as for the Spaniards, although they do put in the bottom of the front page the access to their Twitter account.

Netherlands: following the same lines as Spain and France, for this market they use slightly different images in the heritage and nature news (although their difference it is in the image but not in the content of the same) and they highline a bigger number of events at the bottom of the page than the other two.

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USA: as one can imagine, the American website is more similar to the English one. In it they remark film locations in Scotland (using the recent TV series and film, respectively, Outlander and Macbeth), stylish shopping, nature and heritage, contests, meet the locals, whisky distilleries, golf breaks, accommodation and inspiring itineraries.

The last thing to mention it is that, instead of promoting the Twitter account in the bottom of the page, there is an advertisement (the same as the Spain one).

2.7 Activity of the social media channels VisitScotland has different social media accounts in which they promote themselves to attract tourism to their region. In each one of these platforms they act different and publish one thing or another depending on the public they have in there. We can see the action they do in every one of their social media just below:  Facebook: the channel in Facebook is very constant and they upload their status and photos every day. The content has a lot of variety such as landscapes, cities, animals and nature. The timetables are not regular but we can say that almost all the photos and information are uploaded in the afternoon between 16:30h and 19h.  Twitter: the official account in Twitter uploads content every 10 hours, more or less, and the content of the photos and the information is similar than Facebook.

The timetables in Twitter are also irregular but coincides with Facebook that they tweet in the afternoon, although the hours are from 14:00h until 21:00h.  Google+: the account in Google+ is also quite active, uploading photos almost every day and the content is very similar than the other accounts in Facebook and Twitter.  Instagram: the account in Instagram uploads photos three times per day, and the content is mostly related with the nature.  Flickr: the account in Flickr is not as active as the others, since the last photo was uploaded in June, the next one in May and the third photo is from 2006. Most of its content is related with nature, city landscapes and the tradition of the region.  YouTube: VisitScotland has its own channel in YouTube and they upload regularly videos related with golf, nature and gastronomy. Moreover, they adapt the content of the videos according to the time of the year (for example, in winter they present activities related with Christmas or skiing). The majority of the videos do not surpass the one or two minutes of length.

In conclusion, we can say that all the content uploaded in social media is shown at the afternoon. The reason could be that in the morning people is working and they don’t pay attention to the social media channels. By this way, users can obtain a lot of information when they finish to work and have more time. Moreover, the profile picture used in all the accounts is always the same, giving a message of unity.

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2.8 Analysis of the differences with respect to the competence In this section, we have analysed two of the main Scotland’s competitors. We have chosen London as a competitor because it is a very powerful tourism attraction hub and draws most of the tourism of the country.

We have also chosen Ireland as a competitor for their target and for the similitudes of the skyline and region. Also, because they web page is so good and we think that this will help us in terms of benchmarking.

Starting with London, in its webpage appears a pop-up once you enter that allows you to rate the page, qualify your experience and after that you can make a comment, suggestion, etc. The page is very static, there's not a lot of photographs showing you the city, only pictures associated on what you are looking for, that's not bad but for example the screen could be a photo of the city instead of being in blank. On the other hand, the few photographs allow you to find quickly what you are looking for (tours, guides for kids, etc.). Moreover, is quite active in the social media and there’s an option to plan your journey or a guide for those who visit the city for the first time. Last, they offer useful tips and useful information at the same time that they commercialize products.

On the other hand, Ireland's webpage is much more dynamic than the London's one.

You can register yourself and they offer you all the services that we find in the webpage of London (accommodation, things to do, tips, etc.). It is also connected with the social media channels, it is very active (they try to give an image quite similar to Scotland with images of landscapes, culture and nature). It offers a selection of images to start exploring the country and it search for you the best way to go there (planes or ships/ferries). A remarkable thing is that, as we have seen in the example of Australia, there's a map that shows you different destinations and there are photos associated to the destination. Moreover, if you are a registered user you have the option to create your own photo album to recall your stay in the island and share it with your friends.

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3. Social media plan 3.1 Introduction of the group We’re going to develop the strategic proposals presented below as if we are from the Tourism Board of Scotland.

3.2 Strategies 3.2.1 Strategy 1 Strategic proposal 1: Promote international business with golf tourism Objective:  General: increase the number of business people that comes to Scotland to make business while playing golf.  Specific: o Promote the tourist attractions of Scotland. o Increase the awareness of Scotland as a golf destination. o Establish Scotland as a reference place to do business and play golf.

Description: this strategic proposal is based on attracting a larger number of business tourism; since this niche represents the 20% of all tourism expenditure (that is to say, that spend almost twice that of leisure visitors) and it is barely affected by seasonality. Also, we want to increase the awareness of golf tourism, because it is poor promoted although being Scotland its homeland, and we want to promote it together with business tourism to attract a high expenditure tourism and to prove that business can also suppose passing a good time. With this into mind, our actions will try to go into that direction and promote the destination with the motto “Scotland, the birthplace of golf and your business”.

The following actions will be focused primarily on the key markets both in business and golf that will be the United States and Germany, but also it will be focused on emerging markets with high perspectives of growth in the future such as Spain, Russia and Sweden.

Actions included:  Action 1.1: Promote the destination through a direct campaign.  Action 1.2: Advertising campaign at airports and business events.  Action 1.3: Improve the golf section in VisitScotland’s website.  Action 1.4: Promotion through the blog.  Action 1.5: Create a specific golf newsletter.  Action 1.6: Social media advertising.  Action 1.7: Increase the density of the keywords “golf” and “business”.

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Target audience: Scotland will focus this strategic proposal on users on the internet as well as high standard business companies of the aforementioned countries.

Market and products: business chiefs will find an ideal region to close deals with their clients at the same time that they enjoy of the landscape and the golf.

Communication strategy: the communication of this strategic proposal will take part in VisitScotland’s social media, its website, newsletters and direct communications.

Action 1.1: Promote the destination through a direct campaign Objective: increase the number of business companies that come to Scotland.

Description: The intention of this action is to go directly for the business companies that interest us the most to make them come. To get this, we are going to send to each one of this companies a single golf ball with a stylish and elegant package. This golf ball will be provided with a QR or NFC code that will be scanned by the company chief and it will allow him to access, through their mobile phone, to an exclusive section of our website. In this special section they will easily find a personalised information about Scotland’s golf courses and advantages to go here and, more important, they will find different unique experiences to book their best stay in Scotland.

Time frame:  How many time we need: 1 or 2 weeks to send all the golf balls to our targets.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take place on April 2016, due to it is a low demand season but it starts to have a good weather. It will start with a few selected companies and, if it works well, it will be repeated with a few other ones at least half of a year after, on September 2016 (after the high season).

Priority: MEDIUM

Action 1.2: Advertising campaign at airports and business events.

Objective: create awareness of Scotland as a golf destination and place it as a reference on this sector.

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Description: this action consists on placing a golf simulator at airports terminals and business events in which Scotland will assist as a destination, as places frequent by our objective public. This simulator will allow the user to play virtually in a Scottish golf course, enjoying of the singular landscape this region provides while having fun.

Scotland’s golf courses are located in gorgeous emplacements, from the mountains of the Highlands until the coast.

There will be a secondary advantage of this campaign and that’s on the fact that other people will be aware too of Scotland as a destination for this sport and it can also attract other public outside the business world, which is also a beneficial for the region.

Time frame:  How many time we need: it’ll be planned to last one month.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take place at the airports on May 2016, just before the summer holidays, and in the different business events of the year 2016.

Priority: MEDIUM

Action 1.3: Improve the golf section in VisitScotland’s website.

Objective: stand out this section in the website and increase its content.

Description: It is important that people can access easily to all the information regarding golf in the website, it is for this reason that we’ll put the golf button in a visible place of the front page. Apart of that, we’ll increase its content with more information and a specific section inside it related with business.

Time frame:  How many time we need: approximately two months.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on February 2016 until April 2016.

Priority: HIGH

Action 1.4: Promotion through the blog.

Objective: create content for the blog and turn it into a way of promotion.

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Description: For this action we’ll create blog content thanks to the entries written by prescriptors and bloggers related with the world of the golf. These people can spread this content to other websites (specifically, their own websites) and help with the positioning by words. Also, people creating content generates engagement and people tend to believe much more in other people’s opinion than in any information the Tourism Board can proportionate.

Time frame:  How many time we need: every two weeks we’ll publish one entry.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on April 2016 (after the web’s improvement).

Priority: MEDIUM

Action 1.5: Create a specific golf newsletter.

Objective: increase awareness of golf just like the bookings on golf courses.

Description: with this action we pretend to contact directly to business and provide them an information as customized as possible that could attract them to come, thanks to the information we already have of them in our data base. These newsletter will have an interesting e-mail subject that will make them open it and it’ll be signed by a person with name and surname, not by the customer care area.

They’ll be send to the business on Tuesday, to give them time to make a decision or to negotiate if they’ll come or not. Also, they’ll be sent at mid-morning or midafternoon because this way the receiver will have already open the mails from the previous days and our e-mail will not have to compete with the other ones to get their attention.

Time frame:  How many time we need: 1 month for each newsletter.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on May 2016.

Priority: HIGH

Action 1.6: Social media advertising.

Objective: create awareness of Scotland as a golf destination and establish a relation with the users.

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Description: this action consists on increase the posts about golf and business in social media. For this action, the social media we’ve decided to be in are Twitter and LinkedIn, since there are platforms frequented by businessmen and this allow us to be more close to our target. Since VisitScotland hasn’t a LinkedIn account, we’ll create one, since this social media it’s the most interesting for us because it’s completely business related and has an important golf community settled in there.

In fact, it is a vivid group and, probably, the largest online golf community.

On the other hand, in these social media we are going to publish our information together with photos and videos and we’ll create a hashtag where users can accede to all the content related with this with only one click.

Time frame:  How many time we need: it’ll need a year.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take place during the whole 2016, with the possibility to extend to the following years if it works well.

Priority: MEDIUM

Action 1.7: Increase the density of the keywords “golf” and “business”.

Objective: improve the positioning of the website.

Description: In this action we are going to increase the density of the keywords “golf” and “business” by putting these words in the places which give more positioning points such as: the URL of the page, the title that is shown in the shown in the superior stripe of the browser, the headings, the website internal links, the alternative text in the images (shown by putting the mouse on a photo) or the description space. With this, the website will gain a better positioning in the search engines that will allow it to arrive at a larger number of people (through SEO, Search Engine Optimization).

Time frame:  How many time we need: approximately two months.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take place during the improvement of the website (from February 2016 until April 2016).

Priority: HIGH

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3.2.2 Strategy 2 Strategic proposal 2: “2016: Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design” Objective: get new content in our social media profiles using some activities related to “2016: Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design”.

Description: this strategic proposal consists on creating some activities in social media to encourage people participating and creating new content in Scotland social media profiles.

Actions included:  Action 2.1: Design a contest in social media.  Action 2.2: Organise a work trip of designers and/or artists to show their work inspired on the country.  Action 2.3: Invite locals and bloggers to make content by entries or photos uploaded to social media.

Target audience: Scotland will focus this strategic proposal on users of social media.

Market and products: users of social media will have the choice to participate in contests and other activities organised in Scotland social media profiles.

Communication strategy: the communication of this strategic proposal will take part in Scotland social media profiles.

Action 2.1: Design a contest in social media.

Objective: encourage people to create new content and be aware of the region by participating in a contest.

Description: Scotland social media profiles will design different kind of contests during the whole year related to innovation, architecture and design. This will encourage people to participate and Scotland Tourism Board will get new content and information of the users for free.

Time frame:  How many time we need: a year.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take part during the whole year 2016.

Priority: HIGH

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Action 2.2: Organise a work trip of designers and/or artists to show their work inspired on the country.

Objective: to become the scenery of important designers and artists’ works.

Description: Scotland will organise some work trips for designers and artists to allow them using the wonderful landscapes for their works. If many important artists inspire their works in Scotland, it will get more interest and prestige.

Time frame:  How many time we need: a month.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take part during June 2016.

Priority: MEDIUM Action 2.3: Invite locals and bloggers to make content by entries or photos uploaded to social media.

Objective: to get new content by entries or photos uploaded to Scotland social media profiles.

Description: Scotland will invite locals and bloggers to make content by uploading entries or photos to social media with a specific hashtag. The first five ones with more likes will be put in the website. In addition, the author will become a partner of the region during a month.

Time frame:  How many time we need: two months.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will take part during February and March 2016.

Priority: HIGH 3.2.3 Strategy 3 Strategic proposal 3: “Improve the contents on-line” Objective: improve the web page, other media profiles and create a timetable for different actions.

Description: this strategic proposal is based on improve the positioning, create a data base and offer new services for our public.

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Actions included:  Action 3.1: Design a new distribution for the web page.  Action 3.2: Create content for TripAdvisor and Wikipedia.  Action 3.3: Increase that people make comments in our web page.  Action 3.4: Set up an enter pop-up to log on our visitors.  Action 3.5: Implant a booking engine.

Target audience: Scotland will focus this strategic proposal on users on the internet.

Market and products: users on the internet will have more and fresh information.

And will be an easier web page to surf on.

Communication strategy: the communication of this strategic proposal will take part in Scotland on-line users.

Action 3.1: Design a new distribution for the web page.

Objective: Become a better web page.

Description: The intention of this action is to reorder all the buttons of the page, moving the buttons of social media to the end of the page and introducing the essential information to the top.

Time frame:  How many time we need: 1 or 2 weeks to introduce.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on April 2016 and we’ll control it each year.

Priority: MEDIUM

Action 3.2: Create content for TripAdvisor and Wikipedia.

Objective: Give more information and improve our weak profiles.

Description: The process to achieve our objective is to post lots of information in these different platforms and also control that the information is true and that it is current. We are going to control the veracity of the information every 6 months during the first 3 years of the implementation of this action and after this timeframe, we’ll control it once a year.

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Time frame:  How many time we need:  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on May 2016.

Priority: MEDIUM

Action 3.3: Increase that people make comments in our web page.

Objective: To be more interactive and have more feedback.

Description: For us, it is important to be trustful. To reach this we want to use the comments of our visitors, that we can answer them back. The feedback will be one of the most important points of this strategy. And also, we are creating indirectly more data base.

Time frame:  How many time we need:  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on February 2016.

Priority: HIGH

Action 3.4: Set up an enter pop-up to log on our visitors.

Objective: To create a data base with mails of the log on.

Description: In this action will take part two things. The first one is the pop-up and the second one is our CRM. We want to use the mail, which we have achieved and saved on CRM to start a Newsletter campaign. This campaign will be monthly.

Time frame:  How many time we need: 1 week to set up.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on mid-January 2016.

Priority: HIGH

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Action 3.5: Implant a booking engine.

Objective: To make easier to our visitors the booking and the engagement with local enterprises.

Description: Set up new links which people can find easily our establishments and book more quickly.

Time frame:  How many time we need: 1-2 months to implement.  In which moment the action starts and in which moment finishes: this action will start on September 2016.

Priority: LOW

3.3 Implementation and control  Strategic proposal 1: Action 1.1: Promote the destination through a direct campaign.

The implementation of this action will be costly and it will require a big knowledge of our objective market since we have to send a personalised offers to each one. We have to take also into account the price of sending the golf balls as well as its own price and the cost of inserting the QR or NFC codes.

The control of this action will be based on the number of companies that have entered in the special webpage out of the total, as well as the number of bookings. If the action has good results, it will be repeated.

Action 1.2: Advertising campaign at airports and business events.

The implementation of this action is expensive as well since the virtual golf equipment has a high cost. Although it is an entertaining way to give to know golf in Scotland, we find the problem of people that use the game to have fun but the message we want to transmit don’t reach them.

We are going to control this action by measuring the increase of visits on the webpage, especially in the golf section, as well as the number of people that gets interested on the game and what we promote in situ.

Action 1.3: Improve the golf section in VisitScotland’s website.

To implement this section will suppose a problem because during the time the website will be upgrading, it can present different connection problems and it is possible that, at some times of the day, users cannot access.

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The control of this improvement will be made by counting the received complaints regarding the content and function of the website. Another way to control it will be by measuring the number of times people accede to this section through the button at the homepage and, also, by looking if the section about business golf it is visited a lot or not.

In addition, we’ll use Google Analytics or Alexa in order to study the website traffic, the length of the visit or see how the visitors move into the website, to observe which parts of the same they look more at.

Action 1.4: Promotion through the blog.

To implement this action we need of the help of bloggers and prescriptors. Here we find some problems: the cost of the entry of a blogger, if we pay him, can be very high in the long run, taking into account that bloggers earn approximately between 50 and 150 € for each entry. On the other hand, it is necessary to take a close look at the content published in order to prevent false or harmful content for the destination in addition to make sure that it is well-written.

To control this action and be sure that it does its task to promote the destination and business golf, we are going to look towards the number of reservations made since the publication of each blog entry besides its number of visitors.

Action 1.5: Create a specific golf newsletter.

The implementation of this action presents a barrier in terms of information, since it is needed to be implemented once having a good database in order to customize the newsletter and make it arrive to the people that interest us the most.

In terms of control, we can see the results of this newsletter campaign through a mail analysis program, for instance, Experian Cheetah Mail. This program allow us to know the number of emails opened or the time they have done that, very useful data for future interactions. Another tool to control it will be the number of bookings and the visits at the webpage through the link located inside the newsletter.

Action 1.6: Social media advertising.

This action is very easy to implement since it’ll only consist on increase the number of golf and business related posts in our social media. In spite of that, one problem we can find it is the need to create a LinkedIn account, study the way the communication shall to be made and try to take part in and be accepted inside the golf community located in there.

To measure and control we’ll use the data from the social media collected by Google Analytics; for instance the number of likes and posts read, the impact of the social media or the things the users share. Moreover, it’ll be also useful seeing the volume of interaction of the users, together with user’s both positive and negative comments that because of this action can be produced. If the data collected support this action, we’ll extend it to the following years.

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Action 1.7: Increase the density of the keywords “golf” and “business”.

This last action will be relatively easy to implement, since there are quite a lot of ways to obtain a better positioning of the website. This Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the cheaper advertising ways and that allows to control the return of investment. But, on the other hand, it is necessary to be careful with technical challenges of the website, that can prevent the search engine spider from accessing to the content, and to take into our mind that the marketing environment is very competitive and everyone wants to rank highly, which will make us harder to get a good visibility.

In the case of buying keywords to increase the positioning, we can use Google AdWords to track the keyword purchase campaign and verify if the positioning has indeed get better or not.  Strategic proposal 2: Action 2.1: Design a contest in social media.

Talking about the implementation, it is necessary to talk about the resources we need and possible barriers we could find on the way. For example, as it has been said, people who would like to participate in our contest need to put like in our social media profiles.

Then, they need to write a comment or something more and maybe it would be a little bit annoying for them. For that reason, we will try to make easier the participation in our contest.

Regarding the control of the action, we will suggest to look at the number of participants of the contest organised in social media in relation to the total number of likes in our profiles. Another way to know if this strategic proposal is well-working, we can also compare the total number of likes in our social media profiles before and after the contest. In this way, we will know if this contest has been a good idea to increase our followers or not.

Action 2.2: Organise a work trip of designers and/or artists to show their work inspired on the country.

Concerning the implementation of this action, the main resource we will need is a companion guide for our artists group. He or she will be charged of accompany the group throughout the whole trip, solving problems that could appear to the participants and showing the most emblematic settings and activities of Scotland. In the case that we observe in the course of the work trip that some activities lose interest, we will have to be prepare with a back-up plan. That's a possible barrier we could find on the way.

Moving on the control, we will suggest to look at the number of artists interested on the work trips organised. Furthermore, during the celebration of those work trips we should analyse, by observing the participants, the interest rate they show. By this way, we will know if this idea gets the interest and could encourage us to organize it again.

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Action 2.3: Invite locals and bloggers to make content by entries or photos uploaded to social media.

In the implementation of this action, we have to take into consideration that we need a person in charge exclusively of encouraging locals and bloggers to create new content in our social media profiles, by for example, organising photography contests or creating a specific hashtag for them.

The control of this action, we just have to compare the content uploaded before and after implementing this strategy.  Strategic proposal 3: Action 1.1: Design a new distribution for the web page.

In the implementation of this action, we find a problem when we have to pay improvements. Apart of that, there are not more difficulties to set up improvements.

We think that to control if it works well and if it is current or not, we will analyse it year by year.

Action 1.2: Create content for TripAdvisor and Wikipedia.

We can find a barrier in the implementation of this action that it is that we must have writers who can create good content. For this reason, it could be a bit expensive to carry out the action.

We have decided to control if the content is truthful every six months and we intend to increase it each year.

Action 1.3: Increase that people make comments in our web page.

Our risk with the implementation of this action is that people do not tend to write those e-mails or comments.

We’ll control how many e-mails in our CRM are coming from the feedback section each six months.

Action 1.4: Set up an enter pop-up to log on our visitors.

We are going to implement this action seeing if it has the same risk as the previous action. The risk is that people do not write those e-mails. And also the high cost of doing a newsletter each month.

To control this action we’ll use the program called Mailchimp. This program analyses the received mails and control which ones have been opened. Then, when we detect that one person has more than 5 e-mails not opened, we’ll drive them out from our CRM.

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Action 1.5: Implant a booking engine.

In the implementation we detect two problems, one of them is that hotels in the area need to cooperate with us and the other one is that setting up the engine is really expensive.

We will control that by asking to all the hotels how many bookings have received through our booking engine.

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4. Conclusions To conclude, we can say that Scotland has a very good webpage and has a lot to offer to their visitors. However, they can improve some aspects, such as the activity in the social media channels by uploading more photos or information twice or three times per day, for instance, or trying to personalize more the user's experience in their webpage (which we have solved in our strategic plan).

We have seen that their main market it is from the United Kingdom, a national market.

This could be probably because England in general is more attractive for the own population to visit or maybe because their strategic plan is focused mainly in the UK. However, they should try to open themselves to new markets such as the German or the French (very attracted for the nature and the landscapes), or the Nordic countries. They also could try to create an 'historic' product focused in the USA and Canada to make them recall the origins or the region.

Apart of this, they are making a very good job promoting their country by a webpage very well structured, with photographs, interactive and dynamic.

In relation to the strategies to get better Scotland as a destination, the first strategic proposal, called “Promote international business with golf tourism”, based on attracting a larger number of business tourism using golf, at the same time that we promote Scotland as a golf destination.

Focusing on the actions we are going to carry out, they are mainly run towards the promotion of golf and business tourism by using direct marketing (both at the own companies that interest us and in a general way in airports and business events), the tourism website of Scotland (specifically, its blog), newsletters and social media.

Finally, to increase the perception and in order to get better the information that there are already on the website, we’ll improve the golf section in their website as well as it positioning by increase the density of a few keywords.

Moving on now to strategic proposal 2, we can say as a conclusion that it could be a good way to attract attention to our social media profiles. Organising a contest is a good idea to encourage people participating and at the same time, increasing our followers in social media.

Moreover, inviting artists or designers to use our landscapes for their works, it is also a beautiful way to be recognised around the world.

Finally, encouraging locals and bloggers to create new content by entries or photos uploaded to our social media profiles, it is a good strategy to increase our followers in social media as well.

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Turning now to the 3th strategy, we want to say that this one is really broad. To sum up one idea is to progress the positioning, other is to set up a CRM or Data Base and the last one is to offer new services for our visitors.

Focusing on how we will do it, there are 5 actions to carry out this strategy. Which are: Action 3.1: Design a new distribution for the web page. In this one we will reorganize the web page putting up the essential information and down the social media buttons.

Action 3.2: Create content for TripAdvisor and Wikipedia. Add more trust and current information on those platforms.

Action 3.3: Increase that people make comments on our web page. We want to be trustful and for this reason we will create a zone where people can let us they comments and then answer them back.

Action 3.4: Set up an enter pop-up to log on our visitors. Creating this action we want to achieve two things in one. We pretend to have a big database using the e-mails from the pop-up and then use those to start a campaign making newsletters monthly.

Action 3.5: Implant a booking engine. To make easy the booking progress we have thought about doing our own engine with the cooperation from the hotels.

To conclude this point, we will talk about the implementation and control. The barriers will be monetary and collaborative. Also, to control the actions we have to take account the deadline on each other. It is true that to control, we need supporters as surveys or Mailchimp, which is a program how analyze the e-mails send.

If I can just sum up the main point, I’ll say that Scotland is a destination highly prepared in the tourism field, which has made it difficult to think in new strategies.

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5. Bibliography Alexa Internet. (2016). Alexa. An Amazon company. Recovered from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/visitscotland.com Facebook. (2016). Facebook. Recovered from https://www.facebook.com/visitscotland.es/?brand_redir=334250391467 Flickr. (2016). Flickr. Recovered from https://www.flickr.com/photos/visitscotland?ch=vs.com Golf Business Monitor. (2015). Golf Business Monitor. Recovered from http://www.golfbusinessmonitor.com/golf-marketing/2012/10/where-is-a-true-golfsocial-networking-site.html Google. (2016). Google +. Recovered from https://plus.google.com/+visitscotland/posts?ch=vs.com Instagram. (2016). Instagram. Recovered from https://www.instagram.com/visitscotland/?ch=vs.com Ireland. (2016). Ireland. Recovered from http://www.ireland.com/en-gb/ Jesús Alfaro. (2016). Social Media y más. El blog de Jesús Alfaro. Recovered from http://socialmediamas.com/4-pasos-para-medir-el-roi-de-la-estrategia-en-redessociales/ LinkedIn Corporation. (2016). Linked:Golfers, #1 Golf Networking Group Online.

Recovered from https://www.linkedin.com/grps/Linked-Golfers-1-Golf-Networking-1988391/about?

London. (2016). Visitlondon.com. Official visitor guide. Recovered from http://www.visitlondon.com/?ref=header Peñarroya, M. (2010) Màrqueting electrònic per al turisme cultural (1st ed.). Bellcaire d’Empordà: Edicions Vitel·la.

Scotland. (2016). The official gateway to Scotland. Recovered from http://www.scotland.org/ Strokes, R. (2011) eMarketing: The essential guide to digital marketing (4th ed.). Flat World Knowledge, Inc.

The Next Web. (2016). TNW News. Recovered from http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/03/05/social-media-platform-bestbusiness/#gref

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The Scottish Government. (2016). The Scottish Government. Recovered from http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2013/05/9633/19 Twitter. (2016). Twitter. Recovered from https://twitter.com/visitscotland?ch=vs.com Visit Scotland. Business Events. (2016). Convention Scotland. Recovered from http://www.conventionscotland.com/content/default.asp VisitScotland. (2015). VisitScotland.org. The corporate site for Scotland’s national tourism organisation. Recovered from http://www.visitscotland.org/ VisitScotland. (2015). VisitScotland. Scotland’s National Tourism Organisation.

Recovered from http://www.visitscotland.com/ YouTube. (2016). YouTube. Recovered from https://www.youtube.com/user/VisitScotland?ch=vs.com

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