Principal Investigator: Dr Philip Alford
“Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.”
(Chinese Proverb)
Bournemouth University’s School of Tourism has successfully attracted funds from the
Economic & Social Research Council to deliver a project “Digital Destinations”.
The aim of the project is to capture change in the adoption and use of digital technologies and to
develop a strong, competitive local tourism economy. Through increased understanding and use of
emerging digital technologies, tourism businesses will be in a position to increase their marketing and
management effectiveness, and develop new products and services that will provide an enhanced
experience for visitors to their destinations.
This proposal will accelerate tourism business growth via an improved understanding and
implementation of digital technologies and facilitate the exchange of knowledge between tourism
academics and tourism professionals. Knowledge will be exchanged between businesses that have
already reached an advanced state of digital adoption (as well as those who have yet to engage), and
leading tourism academics, with support provided by experienced digital and destination management
professionals.
The 12-month project has a number of deliverables that will present exciting opportunities for the
businesses involved:
• Sixty businesses recruited and divided into 6 groups of 10 from across the Dorset & New
Forest region;
• Each group participates in a series of knowledge exchange activities including strategic online
marketing workshops, webinars on best practice case studies in e-marketing, expert speaker
presentations and exclusive access to resources and materials to enable them to stay ahead
of the digital economy;
• Participating businesses will work toward creating an online marketing strategy;
• Each individual business will be evaluated and benchmarked against best online marketing
practice and then monitored throughout the 12 months of the project. Each participant
business receives an analysis of its online marketing performance and the goal is to
demonstrate a significant increase in online customer engagement through the lifetime of the
project;
• The creation of online marketing business communities allowing exchange of knowledge
between practitioners and leading experts and academics and also with other practitioners –
the co-creation of knowledge in a practical setting;
• A listing on the Digital Hub website where each participant will also be able to download
research articles, best practice papers, video links, etc.;
• A final year online marketing student from the School of Tourism allocated to each business to
work on an online marketing project;
For more detailed information please contact Destination Development Programme Manager, Lisa
Ashurst or Administrator, Jane Bingham (DDP@bournemouth.ac.uk) 01202 965406.