Hamilton County Tourism (HCT) is the first Destination Marketing Organization in the state to launch a Google partnership. It’s also the first organization in the world to implement Truly360’s suite of services through the partnership. The comprehensive program connects Truly360 representatives to tourism-related businesses, attractions and organizations in Hamilton County to optimize their presence online.
“Truly360 helps destinations and their partners take full advantage of Google’s vast array of services,” said Truly360 CEO Matthew Focht. “Being such a beautiful and progressive destination, Hamilton County Tourism has seized the opportunity to be first group on the planet to implement Truly360’s full suite of services.”
This week a team from Truly360 will spend time in Hamilton County making sure HCT’s partners are up-to-date with their online information and are equipped to better tell their story visually. The team will capture 1,000 miles of Google Streetview, aerial drone tours, high-definition and ultra-high-definition tours and assist with asset listing verification and travel guide management. This is the third time Truly360 has been onsite in order to uplift community partners.
“Web search is a rapidly changing system,” said HCT Director of Marketing Ashley Ledford. “We must stay on top of the new technologies in this area – such as artificial intelligence, voice search, intelligent assistants and others – because travelers are getting their information this way and as a result, making decisions about their vacations this way.”
The Google DMO Partnership Program was announced in July 2017 as a ground-breaking global program allowing DMOs to review and manage their destination’s content across the Google platform. Prior to this, DMOs were routinely at the whim of user-generated content or Wikipedia content to tell the story about a destination in search inquiries online. Now, DMOs can shape that content.
“The DMO industry has seen organic site traffic to their websites and beyond fall flat as a result of the many Google search products out there, which allows users to find travel information directly from Google,” Ledford said. “HCT has decided to partner with Google instead of accepting a diminishing number of visitors coming directly to our website and online information as well as our partners.”
By Friday, more than 45 tourism-related partners in Hamilton County will have received training to improve their web presence, including Grand Park Sports Campus.
“As a young organization, my team was completely unaware of any Google capabilities available to us,” said Taylor Sidwell, marketing and sponsorship coordinator for Grand Park Sports Campus. “It is because of [the training and coaching] that our organization is now better equipped to maintain a successful online presence for the ease of our end user.”
About Hamilton County Tourism
Hamilton County Tourism Inc. is a nonprofit, destination management organization that promotes tourism growth through strategic marketing, hospitality and development initiatives providing hospitality to more than four million visitors to Hamilton County each year.
About Truly360
Truly360, a trusted Google agency, works with small and medium-sized businesses to help optimize presence online, build brands, drive more revenue and bundle existing business solutions.