07-08 DIAGNOSTICS & PLANNING HIGHLIGHTS

Input Effort Quantitative:

  • Proactively inventoried 3,334 organizations and 5,241 records to ensure communication to civic, business, university and neighborhood leaders is accurate.
  • Updated and improved formatting of the 190page Strategic Blueprint for Marketing Durham as a Destination for Visitors.
  • Assembled and monitored monthly attendance at nearly 50 cultural, civic, sports and recreational events and facilities to benchmark visitor circulation and to inform City-County Results Based Accountability.
  • Assembled and widely distributed comparatives for crime and student achievement to empower other Durham messenger organizations and residents overall to confront negative word of mouth about Durham and inoculate newcomers.
  • Employed Global Insight to benchmark the direct, indirect, induced and leakage impacts of visitors on Durham NC using INPLAN, a very credible Input-Output model.
  • Developed and distributed weekly and monthly destination specific reports on lodging performance as benchmarks and to provide marketing and budgeting intelligence.
  • Worked with Global Insight to update the Durham County and Durham MSA gross product (similar to national gross domestic product).
  • Updated scientific survey of resident perceptions to benchmark DCVB performance and provide marketing intelligence.
  • Worked with D.K. Shifflet to update benchmarks for annual Durham visitation, visitor spending and fair market share to measure progress and calibrate marketing strategies.
  • Conducted analysis through RUF Strategic Solutions to identify household clusters most likely to visit Durham to inform direct marketing and benchmark penetration in every market of origin nationwide.
  • Collected and provided 12 pages of relevant charts and statistics on behalf of City Office of Economic and Employment Development for inclusion in the co-sponsored State of Durham’s Economy Breakfast presentation and report.
  • Updated computations of food away from home as a proportion of income to inform decisions about a 1% levy on prepared food.

Input Effort Qualitative:

  • Used marketing intelligence to conduct an environmental scan (SWOTs analysis) of250 attributesofDurham as a visitor destination to inform developers, economic development and government officials.
  • Continued to provide models to the City, County and Cultural Master Plan Steering Committee to inform a coherent process for making decisions about cultural facilities.
  • Distilled and applied 8 super trends from the DMO Futures Study.
  • Computed economic impact to inform decisions on a MiLB training lab, museum and fan experience.

Outcome Effect Quantitative:

  • Provided marketing intelligence to inform decisions by 9,056 developers, local officials, appraisers and other consultants.
  • Benchmarked collective satisfaction among meeting planners, visitors, taxi passengers, visitor information center walk-ins and website visitors at 4.39% on a scale of 1 lowest to 5 highest compared to 4.15% the prior year.
  • Collaborated with Downtown Durham Inc. to benchmark the image of Downtown and correlate based on “what others say” vs. what those who have visited here in the last 12 months think.
  • Collaborated with Durham Police Department to benchmark performance and resident perceptions of public safety.
  • Collaborated with 20 other DMO’s and MiLB teams to compute the economicimpact of Minor League Baseball on the State of North Carolina.
  • Collaborated withDurham Public Schools to benchmark performance and resident perceptions about the system.
  • Collaborated with Durham Performing Arts Center on awareness levels throughout three different counties.
  • Benchmarked that three out of 4 Durham residents believe DCVB is doing a good job (with an 8 to 1 positive ratio among those more familiar with what DCVB does,) higher than any other government or community organization.

Outcome Effect Qualitative:

  • Gleaned marketing intelligence that confirmed an extremely high level of resident community pride to help other Durham messengers isolate the 10% in nearby communities who drive negative word of mouth (NWOM), the adjectives used and messages that need to be countered.
  • Tracked and posted development updates on 82 place-based assets and dozens of other new visitor-related developments in Durham to better inform requests from developers, reappraisals and feasibility consultants.
  • Developed and distributed cost/benefit comparisons for five major cultural facilities as a means of recommending that local governments make the process of reporting similar to what is used for projects like the American Tobacco Complex and Historic District.
  • Initiated analysis to determine and define additional measures for visitor performance and impact on crime prevention, historic preservation, environmental conservation and other “Social Returns On Investment” (SROI).
  • Updated the residentfavorites restaurant survey to both enthuse residents and provide visitors with valuable input about dining in Durham.
  • Gleaned and distilled secondary research and marketing intelligence to inform individual stakeholder marketing efforts as they attempt to harvest a fair share of visitors drawn to the destination overall.
  • Gleaned marketing intelligence--both primary and secondary--to inform the long range, strategic mission of the Tourism Development Authority.
  • Adapted a Futures Study illustration of the primary and secondary roles of a DMO like DCVB.

[Click your browser arrow to return to the survey]