Listing Events for Success on your Destination Website

On most destination websites, events or ‘what’s on’ pages normally generate somewhere between 40-60% of all website traffic. No matter where you sit on that scale, a significant volume of your website traffic is interested in what’s on content.

Combine this with the fact that live events are unique out of all paid attractions as they are the only thing that is exclusively paid for in advance. You don’t turn up to a live event and pay for a ticket at the door in the same way you do at an amusement park, aquarium or zoo, meaning live event ticket bookings are an ‘all but guaranteed’ specific number of visitors to your destination.

The combination of these two factors begins to paint a picture of the opportunity that is available to all destinations. The question is, how do you use this opportunity to go about turning what might be a one off evening visit into a one night stay? Or taking a one night stay, and converting it into two nights?

Data Thistle are the leading provider of events data in the UK. We asked director Brendan Miles for his thoughts on why live events are such a powerful tool for destinations, and how to go about making the most of your what’s on content.

“Live events are the lifeblood of destinations. They provide inspirational reasons for people to visit your town, city or country, and often at times that are outside of key tourist months. With flexible working practices now the norm, they also provide great reasons for local residents to come back into town and city centres.”

“We all remember the events that meant the most to us - and the locations they were held in. Events make your destination a place not just to visit, but to make memories in - and then, eventually, return to. With your destination website, you can take advantage of this opportunity by showcasing your cultural offerings and giving your visitors something to look forward to - and a reason to look to you.”

What’s on content accounts for almost half, or more than half of the visits to your website; a ticket to a live event guarantees a visit to your destination; and the act of attending an event can create memories that last a lifetime. That’s powerful stuff, so how do you maximise this opportunity on your destination website? Here’s our top three recommendations that you can implement straight away:

1. Improve the user experience

It sounds obvious, but make sure the events on your website are well-categorised and searchable by day, time, genre and location. This allows users to find the events that they are looking for more easily, increasing the chances of conversion.

Categorisation also allows you to automatically build bespoke landing pages for key audience demographics and seasonal calendar hooks. For example family events during school holidays, events for music lovers, or seasonal celebrations like Halloween and Christmas.

On event listing pages add associated content such as ‘recommended restaurants nearby’ or ‘best bars for pre-event cocktails’, or even ‘nearby hotels’. This type of content can encourage increased spend in your destination.

2. Bookability

There is ever-increasing pressure for destinations to provide as much bookable product as possible through their marketing channels. Most live events come with dedicated booking links that go directly to your member venues, supporting local businesses and encouraging your destination’s cultural health.

Adding direct links to booking pages will instantly make your website ‘bookable’. Track clicks on the event booking links in Google Analytics to understand how successful your website is at converting website visitors into actual visitors.

There are other benefits too. Destinations can sign up to affiliate ticketing platforms and earn revenue every time an event is sold through their platform (e.g Ticketmaster, See Tickets, ATG and more.) These affiliate links can also be automatically added by technology partners such as Data Thistle. Once set up they generate you a monthly income without any extra work.

3. Use technology

Live events information is fragmented. It can also change at the drop of a hat: events are cancelled due to poor ticket sales or a singer with a sore throat; sporting events are often moved thanks to TV coverage or European and Cup fixtures.

Contacting all the different venues and providers of events is incredibly time-consuming. And, let’s not forget that, unlike other content on your website, what’s on content changes every single day. Manually keeping on top of your listings is almost impossible.

But don’t fret! There are technology providers out there who can provide an automated live events data service which can dynamically populate and update the events and what’s on listings on your website. Data Thistle are one such provider. They work with several BIDs, DMOs, and other types of destinations to do just this.

Not only does this save your marketing team valuable time, it also improves the user experience as events information is kept up to date and accurate. In addition, an automated events service will help increase website traffic as you’ll have more events listed on your site, which means more searchable keywords and therefore increased visibility in search engines.