As a long-time fan of Family Feud, the classic line “Survey says!” has echoed through our house for years (even dating back to Richard Dawson, circa 1976). While the Feud is an awesome game show that transcends generations of families, today we are going to talk about one of our own surveys.
This past week we sent out a questionnaire to the 180+ destinations that are currently enrolled in our Sports Tourism Index + Scout platform. The questions we asked were focused on a comparison of where each CVB/sports commission stood pre-COVID and where they stand today. Here is a snapshot of the more interesting findings…..
Budget – More than half of the responding organizations said their budgets for the coming year would be cut by at least 26% with some of those slashed by more than 50%. (Note: We have some clients that have had their budgets cut by as much as 80% for this fiscal year).
Staff – Nearly 71% of the respondents kept their sports staff completely intact. This is certainly an encouraging result.
Trade Shows – Over 23% of the organizations surveyed said they would not attend any trades shows this year. In addition, 61% of the respondents said they would be attending less trade shows this year than in years past.
Travel – More than a quarter of the organizations in the survey said they are under a travel ban this year. This is obviously a challenging time for those organizations that cannot attend shows and participate in the traditional speed dating sessions.
You might say, “I expected those types of responses given the environment we are in today” and we certainly wouldn’t take you to task on that viewpoint. But to take a page out of our pastor’s playbook, “Here is the big idea...”
Collectively, this data points to a completely different marketplace than what we have been part of in the past. Travel bans, slashed budgets, smaller staffs, fewer trade show opportunities. All of these variables mean that destinations and event owners will have to play an entirely different game going forward. We will have to use different business development tools and methods and find ways to engage our partners on the other side of the table in new and unique ways. The big idea is that we will all have to be more “intentional” in how we manage our businesses.
Intentional in how we market. Intentional in how we partner. Intentional in where we spend our limited resources. Intentional in how we do everything.
So how do we do that you say? Where possible, lean on data and technology to support your businesses. Mine that data and leverage technology and you will likely find some more intentional opportunities to sustain your efforts. If you need more data, fire up a survey or three.
In next week’s Huddle Up, you will receive information from our team about an opportunity to do just that – be intentional. The announcement we will make is a direct result of listening to our partners through survey data. Be on the lookout next Monday.