We are pleased to share with you a study conducted by Adviso on the web presence of the 22 regional tourist associations of Quebec (ATR) . This study was presented by Karine Miron to the 22 marketing directors of Quebec tourism associations as part of their biannual table.
The study was carried out in continuity with the study by Michelle Blanc ( Comparative ranking of the social media presence of Regional Tourist Associations , 2011) on the social presence of ATRs and that of Frédérick Gonzalo ( State of social media in tourism in Quebec , 2012) on social media and the organic referencing of ATRs.
The study we conducted here goes a little further, by looking at the overall web presence of Quebec tourist destinations. Thus, its objective was to draw a complete portrait of the web presences of Quebec tourist destinations on 4 levels:
- Website (35%)
- SEO (15%)
- Mobility (25%)
- Social media (15%)
1. MAIN FINDINGS
Here are the main findings from the study:
1.1 GOVERNANCE AND WEB PRIORITY IN 2013:
- Mobile marketing is THE top priority for ATRs in terms of web marketing in 2013 (29%)
- 6 out of 10 ATRs do business with an external consultant/agency for their web strategy/marketing
- SEO (52%), web media buying (48%) and web analytics (24%) are the 3 main items of external expenditure
1.2 WEBSITE:
- Only 3 out of 22 ATR sites include traveler ratings on their site
- The in-house CMS is still the most popular (48%) followed closely by the open source CMS (38%) for ATR websites
- 38% of ATRs only experienced one version of their website
1.3 ORGANIC SEO:
- At the organic SEO level, the median domain authority is 52
1.4 SOCIAL MEDIA:
- The majority of ATRs are present on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. In addition, 62% have an official destination blog
- The median ATR was mentioned 125 times monthly in social media, mostly on blogs (35% of mentions) (source: Radian 6)
1.5 MOBILITY:
- Half of the ATRs have a mobile site. Among these mobile sites, 8 out of 11 use geolocation to push relevant information to the user based on their location (restaurant, hotel, etc. nearby)
- No ATR website was in responsive design during the evaluation of the sites in December 2012. On the other hand, 2 ATR websites will be in responsive design during the year 2013, or even currently
Download the full study for free at the end of this article or view the study on Slideshare:
A very special thank you to the Les Évadés team who did an excellent job with the design of the presentation of the study.
About the study:
The data for the study was collected in 2 stages:
- Quantitative analysis of web presences using a grid of more than 80 criteria. The websites of the 22 tourist regions of Quebec were evaluated according to a grid of quantitative criteria including more than 80 criteria on the 4 spheres of activity presented at the beginning of the report. The data was collected by Adviso in December 2012.
- Qualitative online survey of the 22 directors of ATR. An online survey, conducted and hosted on SurveyGuizmo, was carried out from March 8, 2013 to April 5, 2013, among a population of the 22 ATRs in Quebec with the collaboration of the associated ATRs. The objective of the survey was to draw a portrait of the web priorities of the ATRs for the next year, the human resources in charge of the web, the proportion of the budgets invested in the web and the web activities outsourced internally or externally. Of the 22 associated ATRs, 22 responded to the questionnaire giving a survey response rate of 100%.
