Does any other county evoke such passion and pride in its attractions, landscape, food, and arts as Yorkshire? 

If we harness our Yorkshire pride, work together to talk about what makes Yorkshire special, the promotional power will be huge. 

We don't need a big budget. Thanks to the internet and mobile phones, anyone can now have their own publishing empire (websites, social media) be film makers, podcasters, broadcasters…

The challenge is to choose the right approach and right messages.
 
How do you sum up a place as big and full of attractions as Yorkshire?
Is there a way to promote more of Yorkshire, to focus on niche activities, hidden gems as well as well-known places?  

How can we use our passion and pride as our own Yorkshire marketing super-power? 
 
The answer lies in treasures, triggers and tribes: an effective and practical approach to tourism marketing. 

Treasures?
 
Visitors don’t want ‘something for everyone’. They want carefully chosen, special places. They don't want the official view. They want recommendations from local experts.

They want to uncover the unknown, find the forgotten, celebrate the hidden gems alongside the big names. They want an easy way to find the treasures. It's up to local people and loyal repeat visitors to suggest and showcase them.

The Instagram generation do still like to see famous places for themselves, but they're just as attracted, excited and intrigued by lesser known aspects of Yorkshire. They like their followers to ask, ‘where’s that?’, ‘how did you find that?’
 
Visitors, journalists, bloggers and other destination influencers need the information we can provide as local experts.

We don't always value our local knowledge as much as we should. We need to showcase our 'doorstep delights'. In short, we know where the treasure's hidden and need to bring it to the fore! 
 
Triggers? 

Ask a direct question such as ‘where’s the best place to...?’ and recommendations will follow. Tell someone you share one of their interests, and they’ll talk to you. Show an intriguing or beautiful image, and you’ll capture attention.

These are all talk 'triggers' and a great way to start conversations about our treasures. Good marketing promotion is about finding the right messages. 

Tribes? 

The big change brought about by the internet is that we don't need to do all our own marketing. We can harness the power of 'tribes' to help us.  

We all have interests, places, values, activities that we feel quite passionately about. We go through stages of life with other people in similar situations. Whatever our ‘tribe’, we identify with each other, and when there’s somewhere we love, people like us like to hear our recommendations. Tell a member of a tribe and they’ll keep spreading the word.
 
There are many, many different 'tribes', which makes it easier to promote to a broader range of markets. Here's just one example. Think of a local café where parents of primary school children gather. You’ll rarely see an advert saying ‘just dropped children off at school? Come to x’ They don't need to advertise because once a member of a tribe has found that place, the rest follow.

Word of mouth and social media become the key marketing methods. There’s nothing official, nothing scripted, word just spreads.

Fifty years ago if I offered you the chance to go on holiday almost anywhere, you'd grasp the opportunity. A 'holiday' meant relaxation, the chance to see something new. Today's tourists want something different, and they're much more choosy.

For a start, they don't want to be seen as 'tourists'. They want to be seen as individuals, to have 'authentic experiences', to discover something different, perhaps enjoy a challenge or learn a new skill. Today's visitors want 'instagramable' moments, to make memories, to dig deeper and get under the skin of a place. Many want to see as much as possible in as short a time as possible. Others are determined to dig deeper, and explore more slowly. 

Tourism marketing has got much harder since I started doing it thirty years ago. It's also much easier, cheaper and more enjoyable, more variable.

Visitors are more interesting. Anyone working in tourism has tools and opportunities open to them they never had before.

So why are we still using outdated marketing methods and not taking advantage of some simple ways to make visitors happier, and to develop more profitable businesses? 

The majority of tourism businesses are quite small. Many feel like they're in the shadow of bigger, better-known businesses, or places that attract more visitors.

For years, tourism businesses have handed over their marketing to others. They're paid a fee to a tourist board, or pay a hefty fee to advertise somewhere. Marketing was something others did. 

Fortunately the world has changed. Thank you internet, Google, Facebook, Instagram, Tripadvisor and email. 

We no longer value 'official'. We believe in word of mouth, reviews and recommendations from people like us. 

We don't need a huge marketing budget anymore. Pride and passion are really powerful. Visitors want genuine local knowledge. 

Big name destinations and major events do attract visitors. But so do smaller, lesser-known, off-the-beaten track places. Quirky sells. 'Different' and 'better' attract. 

Some time ago Chris Anderson wrote about the "Long Tail"*. He related it to retail but it's equally valid in tourism marketing.

Before the internet, retailers could only sell what they could fit on their shelves. In the case of a book seller, this meant the block busters would be prominently displayed because they sold in large numbers, generating the biggest income. It was harder to get hold of more niche publications. Along came the internet and retailers like Amazon found that while their sales were driven by big names, it was much easier to sell small numbers of many other niche publications, which collectively accounted for high revenue. 

The same can happen in tourism but we haven't quite taken advantage of the power of niche, and tailoring our messages to appeal in different markets.

I used to tell my clients that niches had to be easy to define, target and reach.

Pre-internet, a niche had to be sizeable to make it worthwhile. Social media, websites and email marketing now make it easy to reach even the smallest niche. More than that - if you find the right niches for your business, other people will do your marketing for you.

The world is now full of small tribes, people who have an interest, who know other people who share their interest. They all talk to each other. Excite one person and they'll happily tell others, using social media to enhance the power of word of mouth. It could be people who share a situation such as having young children. It might be a hobby. It could be a passion for a place. Things like beer or cake attract a strong following - mention them and you instantly grab attention. 

How can we use all the power of the long tail, niches and tribes? 

Let's take a simple example. 

​Once upon a time, if I wanted to promote the Yorkshire Dales and to attract a high number of visitors I'd have to use 'honeypots' such as the Wensleydale Creamery, Malham's limestone pavement, Bolton Abbey Estate, and walks around the Three Peaks. Together such places would account for the lion's share of visitors.

Now I can write short blogs every day, writing about more niche activities. Topics can include anything from paragliding in the Dales, the story behind a beer, where to see red squirrels, bluebell woods and Elaine's Tearooms.

Individually each of these are niche, but collectively they attract a large number of visitors. It costs me practically nothing to write the blogs and share them on social media. Others share them on social media and talk about them within their tribe. If I mention a good place to take young children on social media, people instantly tag others with young ones and arrange outings together. Accommodation providers link to the blogs and use them in their own marketing. 

And so it goes - anarchic, people's power marketing. Credible because it's unofficial, and based on local knowledge.

Gone are the vague and meaningless strap-lines about "so much to see and discover"

Instead we're able to direct visitors to places they'll enjoy, things to do that they'll recommend to others. 

Even better, this kind of long tail tourism means fewer crowds in any single area. We can suggest different reasons to visit and attract people year round. The financial benefits of tourism are spread more widely. 

Visitors are happier. They're able to discover new places, get information directly from the people who live in the area. They're not trying to take pictures of places everyone else has heard of so their instagram feed stands out. 

Tourism marketing used to be about spending pounds, handing over our cash to someone else to do it for us.

Now we can all promote the places we love. Passion and local pride make us all into experts. We're more powerful than we perhaps realise, especially when we join together in shared activity. 

Any good marketing just needs a catalyst, a facilitator to make it easier for others to improve their own marketing. If we get that right, visitors and other locals will do the rest. Recommendations and creativity are the keys to today's marketing, fuelled by pride and passion, not pounds and pounds of big marketing budgets.



* The chart above is an example of the long tail. The honeypot destination might account for 300 visitors or £300k of revenue. Well known destinations might account for 200, and lesser known ones for 150. Then come all the niche destinations and niche activities, individually maybe accounting for only 20 - 60. However when the 'long tail' of all these niche destinations and activities are taken together, they can account for more than the the honeypot destination, and the benefits are more equally distributed. 

It's now 7 weeks since Gary Verity left Welcome to Yorkshire. Two investigations have been launched, one into expenses, and one into staff bullying. The previous Chair has resigned, and an interim Chair of the Board, Keith Stewart has been announced. My previous blog looks at how WTY could be a great organisation again, the need for more transparency, accountability, research and improved communication. 

So what’s next for Welcome to Yorkshire?

We need a Yorkshire-wide organisation like Welcome to Yorkshire (WTY) to promote the region. If we all work together in a true spirit of collaboration, unified by an agreed strategy, we can be really successful. There's a lot of willingness to do this, and many are looking to WTY to once again take a lead and develop collaborations as they did in their early days. 
 
In order to move forward, we need WTY and its funders to:

• Genuinely understand what tourism businesses need
• Improve communication and collaboration between WTY and the tourism industry
• Work with the industry to create a Yorkshire-wide tourism strategy so we can all work together with common goals

 
I work with hundreds of tourism businesses across Yorkshire, and (on a voluntary basis) run two networks with over 1000 members in North Yorkshire.

On behalf of these businesses, I'd like to now ask the Board of Welcome to Yorkshire the answers to these questions: 

• Does WTY have a firm date for completion of the two investigations and publication of findings?

• When will the search for a new Chief Executive start? What will be the recruitment process?

• When will WTY recruit new members for the board? Will they use a similar transparent and representative process as other destination organisations such as Cumbria Tourism?

• When will the minutes of Board meetings be published? Where?

• At Y19 Peter Dodd announced an industry consultation but no further details have been announced. When will this take place? How?

• What plans does WTY have to work with the tourism industry to develop a collaborative marketing strategy for Yorkshire? What opportunities will there be for input into this by all sectors of the tourism industry?

• What plans does WTY have to improve primary visitor research and evaluation of campaigns, including publishing results of campaigns?

• When will the Service Level Agreements between WTY and its local authority funding partners be published?

• What plans does WTY have to reform the Private Sectors Group and publish minutes of all those meetings?

• What plans does WTY have to refresh the membership scheme? Will membership income (at each level) form part of future reports to funding partners, since this is a good barometer of industry support and therefore Welcome to Yorkshire’s effectiveness?  

I sent these questions to Keith Stewart, interim Chair of the WTY Board. These were his responses on 14th May: 

Does WTY have a firm date for completion of the two investigations and publication of findings?
The two investigations are expected to be completed by the end of June. A date for publication of the findings has not been set.

When will the search for a new Chief Executive start? What will be the recruitment process?
We have begun the process of recruiting a new chief executive and a nominations subcommittee of the Board has been appointed to oversee this process.

When will WTY recruit new members for the board? Will they use a similar transparent and representative process as other destination organisations such as Cumbria Tourism?
We believe it is important to have a diverse Board make-up and a recruitment process will be undertaken. As the findings from the current investigations may well have an impact on the process, we can’t confirm details at this point but when we can they will be published on our website.

When will the minutes of Board meetings be published? Where?
In the interests of greater transparency, we will be making available all appropriate Board meeting documents public, including agendas, papers and minutes on our website as of the next Board meeting in June. We are consulting with our local authority partners to use their best practice on how to achieve this.

At Y19 Peter Dodd announced an industry consultation but no further details have been announced. When will this take place? How? What plans does WTY have to work with the tourism industry to develop a collaborative marketing strategy for Yorkshire? What opportunities will there be for input into this by all sectors of the tourism industry?
We work closely with many partners in the tourism industry in Yorkshire and will continue to do so in the future. We are currently putting the full details of the consultation together and welcome your contribution once it goes live. As discussed with you at Ripley Castle, we would look to report the findings of this consultation towards the end of this year.
Your additional questions will all form part of the longer-term planning of the organisation as and when we recruit the new chief executive and members of the Board and will therefore form part of their responsibilities to take decision on those matters.
Does WTY have a firm date for completion of the two investigations and publication of findings?
The two investigations are expected to be completed by the end of June. A date for publication of the findings has not been set.
When will the search for a new Chief Executive start? What will be the recruitment process?
We have begun the process of recruiting a new chief executive and a nominations subcommittee of the Board has been appointed to oversee this process.
When will WTY recruit new members for the board? Will they use a similar transparent and representative process as other destination organisations such as Cumbria Tourism?
We believe it is important to have a diverse Board make-up and a recruitment process will be undertaken. As the findings from the current investigations may well have an impact on the process, we can’t confirm details at this point but when we can they will be published on our website.
When will the minutes of Board meetings be published? Where?
In the interests of greater transparency, we will be making available all appropriate Board meeting documents public, including agendas, papers and minutes on our website as of the next Board meeting in June. We are consulting with our local authority partners to use their best practice on how to achieve this. 
At Y19 Peter Dodd announced an industry consultation but no further details have been announced. When will this take place? How? What plans does WTY have to work with the tourism industry to develop a collaborative marketing strategy for Yorkshire? What opportunities will there be for input into this by all sectors of the tourism industry?
We work closely with many partners in the tourism industry in Yorkshire and will continue to do so in the future. We are currently putting the full details of the consultation together and welcome your contribution once it goes live. As discussed with you at Ripley Castle, we would look to report the findings of this consultation towards the end of this year.
Your additional questions will all form part of the longer-term planning of the organisation as and when we recruit the new chief executive and members of the Board and will therefore form part of their responsibilities to take decision on those matters.