Tourism Group Will Reach Out to W&M for Study on Competition

By Desiree Parker Tuesday, January 26, 2010

At Monday evening’s Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee, members decided to approach William and Mary’s Mason School of Business to see if they’d be interested in working on a study about the Triangle’s tourism competitors.

The Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance set aside $10,000 for such a study out of its own budget. The study would “identify actions competitors have taken, assess their impact, recommend how we can best position ourselves during the coming recovery, and recommend how we should systematically track competitor actions going forward,” according to the Alliance’s recommendation to WADMC during its November meeting.

At the November meeting, the Marketing Resource Task Force (WADMC’s marketing arm) was going to put together a request for proposals to find a group to do the study (read that story here). At Monday’s meeting, though, Alliance President Dick Schreiber suggested using the College to do the research. Most members seemed to support the idea, and they agreed the Alliance should talk to the College. They did not seem interested in doing an RFP.

The Williamsburg Area Hotel Motel Association has been pushing for a study of the Triangle tourism industry, which would include analyzing other markets. They contacted the Nichols Group, which did a similar study in 2005 that serves as a guide for the Alliance’s marketing strategy, to see if they’d be interested in doing a new study. The Alliance didn’t support such an extensive study, they told hoteliers over the summer, but they did like the idea of a study of competitors.

“Basic knowledge of our competitors is necessary,” Schreiber said in November. “We’ll determine if others have done things that we should consider doing, things we can continue to track in the future.”

At Monday night’s meeting, the marketing committee told WADMC members they had a list of about 16 destinations that they thought were competitive or comparable to the Triangle, and that to do a study on all those could cost between $50,000 and $100,000 (this was just their best guess, they said).

Everyone agreed the list was too long and needed to be whittled down, and needed to be less expensive. The marketing committee was tasked with shortening the list to a more reasonable number.

Members seemed to like Schreiber’s idea of using students at the Mason School of Business to work on the study, but HMA President Chris Canavos pointed out that the Nichols Group had offered to do a more detailed study for $30,000, less than the $50,000 or more the marketing group had guessed.

“We don’t have $30,000, Chris, we have $10,000,” said Chairman Phil Emerson. A marketing committee representative pointed out that to investigate the option of using the Nichols Group, WADMC would need to do an RFP.

“Let’s do an RFP, then,” Canavos said.

The group chose instead to start talks with the college and see if they’d be interested in taking on the project.

After the meeting, Canavos told WYDaily that the HMA wants “a group that lives and breathes this [industry] every day.” He said the firm that’s chosen to do the study should be the one to select the destinations of comparison. He also reiterated his comment that WADMC should do an RFP for the study.

“Historically, the process with WADMC is to do an RFP, like they did with the new booking engine,” Canavos said. He hopes the College would participate by joining the proposal process.