Who is the Average DMO Website Visitor?

For many tourism destinations, the website is often the first point of contact with potential visitors. A first impression and a fleeting opportunity to deliver the desired message.

But what does the average DMO or CVB website visitor look like? Where do they come from? How long is their attention span and what are they looking for?

Using data from our , let’s take a closer look at who our visitors really are.

DMO Website Visitors are New Visitors

Regardless of destination size, assets or budget, the majority of tourism destination website visitors are new visitors. A good thing for tourism destinations.

Every tourism destination is searching for new visitors. And not just online, but in-destination as well. Even if every single visitor to your city, state or region returned the next year, the quest for new visitors would continue.

In terms of analytics, receiving around 75% of traffic from new visitors is a positive metric. It means you (through marketing efforts), consumers (through WOM) or external forces (think events, PR, etc.) are driving demand toward your destination.

But, are you delivering?

DMO Website Visitors Only Visit Once

Unfortunately, while DMOs and CVBs receive a lot of new traffic and new visitors, we do a poor job in delivering the content and experience desired by the consumer.

We can look at two reports for clues: and .

Within Frequency & Recency we can see that most visits are single visits via the Count of Visits dimension. By itself, there is nothing wrong with that metric being around 80%.

In theory, people visit the site, find exactly what they are looking for and don’t need to return.

However, the Engagement report begins to poke holes in our theory.

Specifically, that most users (65% or so), spend less than 30 seconds on your website.

Ask yourself this: could you find information on your website, about the most popular tourism attraction in your town, in less than 30 seconds?

DMO Website Visitors are Searching

For all the talk, buzz and hype around social media, the vast majority of traffic to a tourism destination website still comes from search.

Almost 70%.

And majority of that traffic, comes from Google.

Yes, a social presence might be a solid strategic tactic, but don’t become blinded by hype.

Tourists still search for information.

Next Steps

What should the three metrics above tell you?

That new visitors are finding your information via search, but you need to do a better job optimizing that content.

It was true 10 years ago, and it is still true today.

What should you do about it?

Understand and optimize the top key phrases (the head) for your site.

Benchmarking Your Data

Interested in benchmarking your website data? Take a look at the . It’s easy and free. Really.