Bandwango’s DXE travel technology platform is fairly new on the destination marketing scene, but already making serious waves. This is especially visible in how various Bandwango partner destinations are employing the Destination Experience Engine in engaging ways for travelers.
Through Bandwango, DMOs are offering better ways for visitors to get the most out of a destination, or for locals to engage more in their own backyard.
As we’ve written elsewhere, attractions are at the heart of facilitating experiences within any destination, and as such, a natural extension of a destination’s marketing efforts. Take Utah’s capital city for example. The fun surprise with the Salt Lake City Connect Pass, is seeing just how popular it is among the locals within the metro area and throughout the region.
With four different expressions of the pass available to customers that range from a 1-day, all-access (as much as one can get to, anyway), to a year-long admissions pass, the magic of the DXE is that it offers visitors, local or otherwise, access to the city’s most interesting, unique or popular attractions.
Attractions like the 1800s pioneer village at This is the Place State Park, or the famed Hogle Zoo, right across the street, are offered in a way that is uniquely tailored to how long visitors plan to be in town. The attractions on the Connect Pass don’t change depending on which pass a visitor buys (even though that’s another easy possibility), but they capitalize on offering the right window of timing for different kinds of visitors.
For a city that understands it has a lot of convention attendees in town for a day or two, as well as a large family-oriented population looking for activities to do together from nearby suburbs, it’s smart marketing, and a genius application of the DXE.
Like so many of Bandwango’s DXE products and solutions, the concept or some version of a visitor’s experience with it already exists. Think Ale Trails, City Passes, etc. But Bandwango brings it all together in a way that can measure data better.
Not only that, DMOs have access to the platform, so they can more accurately track return on investment. Most importantly, the DXE truly empower the DMO itself to really deliver on what it promises potential travelers, and delight locals and visitors with easy-to-use, perk-filled travel experiences.
These experiences are are instantly available and feature real benefits, all while helping visitors truly get the most out of a destination. That’s the case for all Bandwango passes, of course, but it’s especially true with golf trails perhaps more than anything else.
CIties are finding with the golf pass in particular, that outside the headline-grabbing, celebrity-filled golf courses that a state may boast about, the golf trail is a great way to offer quality courses to locals and visitors in an omnibus way that gets them excited to experience new links they haven’t tried, or to get a great deal on a lot of practice.
Either way, for places like Bend, Oregon which has some of the best golfing in the pacific northwest, maybe even the country, their golf trail ensures that folks can experience courses in what Golf Digest ranked as 23rd in their “50 Greatest Golf Destinations in the World”.
Bring golfers and golf-motivated travelers to your destination through a golf trail that’s uniquely designed to be the easiest time they’ll have on the green. On many greens.
Craft Beer is enjoying a moment in America right now that seems to be turning into an era. As such, perhaps no other expression of the DXE is filled with as much potential for immediate gains than an Ale Trail or some other kind of experience with locally crafted beer, wine or spirits. Using the DXE to introduce, curate and interpret a destination’s craft beverage scene to outsiders as well as locals is turning into a chain reaction we’re already starting to see happen within the Bandwango community.
Take Cedar Rapids for example, a city that is bursting at the seams with its own passion for and quality offerings of craft beer. Not only do they offer a 7-day Ale Trail with loads of savings, for their beer-loving local brew scene, they also offer an annual Ale Trail Membership. Not a bad way to save hundreds of dollars at local bars and restaurants.
And despite the hoppy enthusiasm, it’s not just beer that is a major draw for tourism. Wine tasting trails, already an incredibly popular way of travel, also get a boost with the Bandwango DXE. What’s proverbially known as Washington D.C.’s Wine Country, Loudoun County, Virginia is featuring a Wine Passport with tastings, offers and discounts at 22 local vineyards and wineries.
And there are more. Ft. Worth has a Craft Pass. Elsewhere in Texas, Houston has a Brew Pass in their Houston Experience Marketplace. Go Great Lakes in Michigan has a “Drink Your Way” Passport and Mt. Hood Territory in Oregon, a Tap Trail.
Portland has a Distillery Passport, and Colorado Springs has added coffee shops to the mix (totally brilliant) with their Crafts & Drafts passport. With more trails, passes and passports in the works, this particular use of the DXE is incredibly popular. And to consider just how vast the craft brew movement/era is, it appears we’re just getting started.
For travelers, arguably one of the best features about these types of experience trails with Bandwango, from golfing to drinking and from zoos to amusement parks, is that they never have to remember to bring their pass, coupon, or proof of entry. In today’s society, whenever is anyone without their phone? And since all of Bandwango’s DXE products are mobile-optimized web pages delivered instantly to a customer’s phone, it’s better than a golden ticket.
Interested to feature one of these pass types in your destination? Let us hear from you.