In late 2010, Mark Mattson (a former university professor now writing software solutions for the travel industry through TravelTools) and his team interviewed 650 destination marketing organizations to determine what they had in the way of tools for delivering web content to visitors.
By tools, they mean utilities such as interactive maps, itinerary builders, or calendars of events. They also asked about organizational tool selection processes and who operated new tool purchases after they were acquired. Tnooz published their inventory - Rough Guide to Tourism Websites and Technology - in January 2011.
They found that resources made less impact than they originally estimated. While funding directly impacted the number and sophistication of the tools that a DMO could afford, it had little to do with overall satisfaction or success in reaching organizational goals. As it turned out, dissatisfaction surrounded peripheral issues to funding such as vendor and technology lock-in, inadequate staffing and institutional inertia brought about by policies and oversized egos. (tnooz - talking travel tech, December 2011)
