6 Things We're Doing Behind the Scenes

We see it all across North America: a united local tourism industry is the most vital asset to marketing a destination. Together, DMOs and their constituents can leverage their efforts to market the collective whole in powerful ways.

That's why Miles | Weaver proactively participates with the tourism industry in every one of our destination markets. Miles | Weaver has:

• Conducted educational seminars for CVB member business, such as the one we did in Vancouver on Social Media Best Practices and Extending Your Web Presence;
  
• Embarked on industry "road shows" with the Colorado Tourism Office to inform and engage with statewide tourism associations and businesses on how the CTO markets the state, and how they can ladder onto those efforts;
  
• Actively contributed to the planning and execution of the state governor's conferences on tourism in both Colorado and Wyoming;
  
• Regularly attended and participated in CVB member events in each of our markets.  

At Miles | Weaver, we engage with the industry and represent our partner's efforts at every turn, because as well all know, a strong tourism industry benefits everyone.

Green is more than just a buzzword; it's a commitment to responsible business. And when it comes to publishing, going green has to include more than just recycled paper.

In 2010, Miles | Weaver will print more than 3 million publications at zero-waste printers.

Many of the facilities that we print and bind our publications produce emissions that are cleaner than the ambient air around the plant, and in the case of Quad Graphics, where we've printed our San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Colorado and Wyoming guides, the heat emissions from the printing press generate the plant's electricity.

Pair this with our bullishness on the electronic distribution of content, and going with Miles | Weaver means that going green no longer has to be a luxury.

An intuitive CMS is often the unsung hero of effective web marketing. Comprehensive archival tools, easy publishing and fast loading times can make an enormous impact on a CVB’s ability to modify their website quickly.

Because of this — and specifically because of a need for this system with the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau — Weaver created a proprietary open-source content management system developed specifically with DMO and CVB clients in mind.

Philadelphia’s web site enjoys approximately 2 million pageviews annually, meaning the CVB needed a versatile backend system to their website to stay on top of updates. Requirements included a password-protected members area, robust archival and searchability of content, the ability to create custom microsites and landing pages, and a flexible platform that could respond and utilize emerging technologies. The new system was launched in the summer of 2009, allowing the CVB staff to add webpages based on set templates as they saw fit right up to, and beyond launch.

Creating beautiful destination publications is only half the job. Getting them into the hands of readers — and in a cost-effective way — is often an even bigger challenge than production.

That’s why Miles | Weaver works closely with all of its clients on distribution, whether as advisors providing cost-saving analysis or as holistic managers of all guide distribution.

One of many areas where Miles | Weaver has made a significant impact on distribution in 2010 is with the Colorado Official State Vacation Guide. With 650,000 guides in circulation, managing their quick fulfillment from online and call-center requests has become a major priority for Miles | Weaver and the Colorado Tourism Office. Miles | Weaver’s dedicated circulation team found a way to expedite the fulfillment of individual requests to within 10 business days, all without increasing costs to the Colorado Tourism Office. Our circulation team continuously looks for ways to increase response time to guide requests, while saving our clients money — a handy thing to have in economic times like these.

On any given day, you might collaborate with your advertising agency, PR firm, interactive agency and publisher. Sometimes one company might represent two or three of these areas, but even then, the potential for communication breakdown is high.

To our partners, Miles | Weaver's ability to work well with other vendors is one of our great differentiating traits. When all is said and done, our main objective is to convert travelers to your destination. That means we:

• Regularly engage with our clients advertising agencies over creative designs to ensure they fit brand standards
  
• Work behind the scenes to procure listing data feeds from technology providers to power and automatically update such web products as the Five-Minute Meeting Planner, and populate our print guides
  
• Collaborate with interactive agencies on how to integrate our content with existing site architecture 
• Share photo assets with advertising agencies that our professional staff photographer took
  
• And host vendor strategy sessions at our office, to take stock of big-picture items and brainstorming new initiatives, as we've done with Wyoming Travel & Tourism and their advertising and interactive agencies
  

As destination marketing specialists, we know the importance of syncing with your other vendors, no matter the task, no matter the budget.