Hidden Gems and Big Wins: Travel South Dakota’s Winning Strategy for Dispersing Visitors Throughout the State and Avoiding Overtourism in Its Most-Visited Hotspots

The Problem

The state tourism organization was seeing tremendous success in some of their more well-known destinations, but a few years ago, they created a strategic plan to develop ways to disperse visitors across the state. Travel South Dakota’s Katlyn Svendsen said, “Part of that plan was a strong focus on rural tourism, agritourism, and tribal tourism. These unique niche areas were central to our goal of dispersing visitation across South Dakota, which became a cornerstone of our strategy. We wanted not only to continue driving traffic to our state but also to inspire visitors to venture off the beaten path into smaller towns and lesser-known attractions.”

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The Solution

When Travel South Dakota started working with Bandwango, their first check-in challenge was their Great Finds Passport – it showcases many of the state’s hidden gems that have been recommended by locals. Svendsen shared that many of these check-in locations are in rural locations, and this incentivizes visitors to seek out new locations other than just the top attractions. 

“I would say that 90% of the time when you're on a vacation, the unplanned moments are the ones that become unforgettable – and the passport program provides a door into discovering those unique spots. Plus the way that we're able to incentivize that type of behavior through our prize program is fabulous. People love a good prize, they love a challenge.”

They’ve also included other specific passes within their strategy as well. She said, “Bandwango really came as a unique opportunity for us to be able to highlight several of these niche programs.” Travel South Dakota has developed a variety of other passes focused on themes such as parks and outdoors, tribal nations, family fun, state parks, and arts and culture. The organization has developed a well-designed landing page that serves as a home base for all of their passes. This is important to them, as they want people to sign up for multiple passes that may be of interest to them. 

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Marketing the Passes

Travel South Dakota has found that two things have been crucial to the marketing of the passes: integration and consistency. Svendsen shared, “It's really been a part of almost every single touch point that we have –  from printed guides, email programs, web, social – you name it. We're finding ways to tie it into almost every program that we're doing.”

Some ways that they are marketing their passes include:

• Email marketing through their eCRM. They are using zero-party data to make sure targeted messages are sent to the correct people. 
• Social media marketing
• Posters and rack cards in visitor centers
• Earned media
• Promotion to travel trade representatives at events 

They are also using Bandwango’s managed text messaging as a way to stay engaged with passholders once they’ve signed up for a pass.

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Measuring Success

So did it work? Are visitors in South Dakota starting to show a shift toward areas of the state that were traditionally less-visited? Svendsen has been tracking the economic impact on a county level and is excited to share the results. 

“Last year we saw that each of our four tourism regions showed an increase in their visitor spending for 2024 – which is fabulous to see that every single region in our state had growth. And the top 10 counties that had the largest growth were evenly distributed across the state. That's true markers for us to see the success and the power of us utilizing tools like the passport program to see that lift across our entire state. And some of these counties are some of our smallest counties that had some of the largest growth.” 

Alexa Dorn with Travel South Dakota shared that she also likes that the reporting data is easy to track within their Bandwango dashboard, saying, “You're able to really see what passports are being downloaded, and what businesses and locations where people are checking in. You can share that with your shareholders and with your legislators, and it’s really good to be able to show that ROI.”

Because of their team’s hard work, they have some impressive numbers to share.

• 14,796 people have signed up for passes January 1-September 2, 2025 

(There has been almost 35,000 total pass sign-ups since they started the program.)

• 42,631 check-ins January 1-September 2, 2025 

(There have been almost 80,000 total check-ins since they started the program.)  

• The passes are helping draw in out-of-state visitors. 

They have had visitors from all across the United States that are utilizing their passes, but they also have passholders from many other countries such as Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, France, Italy, South Africa, and the Netherlands.

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The initiative has also helped with a couple of other things. 

It’s helped with overtourism

‍Svendsen shared her concern about overtourism, saying, “That was something we wanted to get ahead of the game on. We wanted to make sure that we're not overcrowding our trails, and that the town next door is seeing people in their stores just as much as the one beside it. That really provides for a fantastic visitor experience, too.”

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The program has served as a way to grow relationships with stakeholders

Svendsen said this initiative has helped open doors to new businesses, sharing, “Our industry and our stakeholders are at the core of everything that we do – and certainly these passports have provided relationship building opportunities. Through our Great Finds program, we were discovering businesses we didn’t know about. When we were doing our outreach to business owners, sometimes they didn't even really realize how they fit into the tourism element, and they didn’t have a great knowledge of how our department could assist them. Being a catalyst for economic development and tourism economies in these communities is fabulous. It was a fantastic opportunity to just open doors that hadn't necessarily been open before.”

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New Passes

One hot topic on everyone’s minds at the moment is next year’s celebration of America 250. Dorn shared this is something they had started discussing a couple of years ago, and they decided to use their Bandwango license to create a pass to promote patriotic destinations throughout their state. It launched this year on July 4th. She said, “We're really excited about it. We have about 35 locations all throughout South Dakota.”

Fall-themed passes can be a lot of fun, too, and Travel South Dakota is excited to launch an Autumn Adventures pass this fall. Dorn shared, “There’s just incredible harvest festivals and agritourism opportunities, so we’re using this as a way to get a little bit more shoulder season traffic out and about in our smaller towns. We’ll be updating that every year and doing a big push every year late summer.”

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Travel South Dakota’s Tips for Success 

Use your passes as a way to distribute visitation throughout your state. ‍

Instead of just focusing on the larger attractions, give visitors an incentive to visit other places so that you can spread the economic impact to other regions of the state.  

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Partner with other organizations that have a similar focus. 

Travel South Dakota has developed passes for niche markets and worked with groups such as their state arts council, the game, fish, and parks commission, and the tribal nations to help create the pass and promote their initiatives.  

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Have great prizes. 

They have a variety of prizes available at different levels so that people can have a chance to win something, even if they are only there for a short visit. Their prizes include everything from stickers designed by local artists, a children’s activity book, posters, puzzles, socks, t-shirts, stuffed animals, an ENO hammock, a North Face backpack, and a Rumpl blanket. 

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Make it easy for your partners to promote the pass, too. 

Travel South Dakota has a landing page where others can find easy-to-access promotional materials. Their partners can download posters, find social badges, and find answers to their most common questions about the program. 

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Work with local media to highlight the program. 

Dorn shared that they work with a local newspaper called Pigeon 605 who does a monthly article on the passport program. The journalist does in-depth interviews with participating businesses and passholders. Dorn said, “She just did one last month about a couple who has explored all South Dakota on all these different vacations –  just using the passport as their planning tool as a multi-generational family. It's really awesome.”

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Give your businesses an opportunity to add optional discounts. 

Travel South Dakota doesn’t require coupons, but allows their businesses to offer discounts if they choose to, and Dorn said she sees the impact that makes when they take advantage of it, saying,  “I can see them skyrocket to the most check-ins.”

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Add additional points during meaningful times to increase engagement.  

Forever 605 Day is a local initiative that their state embraces. (605 is their area code, and the celebration happens on 6/5.) Travel South Dakota decided to do a promotion to encourage in-state travel and for that week, they doubled the points that people could accrue on their passes.” Dorn shared her excitement about the initiative, saying, “We ended up having over 9,000 check-ins during this one week span, and we were super super excited about it. And then we gave away a big prize package at the end. It did really well, and I think it got the name out in South Dakota more than ever, which has been a really awesome opportunity.”

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Create an internal committee to help with the passes. 

Travel South Dakota creates a small team of their internal employees to make sure everyone is in the loop and on top of different elements of the pass. They’ve created a great workflow that highlights everyone’s strengths and duties to make sure the pass is set up for success. 

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Conclusion

Travel South Dakota has shown tremendous success through partnerships, creative marketing, and the hard work of their amazing team. They’ve created successful passes with Bandwango that have helped with their goal of dispersing visitors throughout the state, growing tourism in rural, lesser-known areas, and combatting overtourism in their most visited locations.

If your organization wants to find a way to move visitors throughout your state, county, or city to show them all that you have to offer, set up a demo with the Bandwango team to learn more.