About Impactulator™

It’s widely accepted that fire departments keep us safe, schools keep our future secure, and parks keep us healthy. But what is widely accepted about your DMO? It should be known that DMOs keep communities working, but until now, that’s been hard to prove.

Impactulator is a new tool from Experience Kissimmee the solves the long-standing problem of not only calculating the ROI of your DMO, but also communicates the value in a way that residents, politicians, and associations can understand and appreciate.

Impactulator would not be possible without the help of industry veterans and market-proven data sources:

JH

Jason Holic
Vice President of Business Applications & Insights
Experience Kissimmee

JH

James Harnage
Technology Manager
Experience Kissimmee

TM

Ty Marion
Tourism Research Professional

KT

Ktimene Axetell
Vice President of Insights
Arrivalist

BL

Brian London
President & CEO
London Tourism Publications

Data for prototype and benchmarking purposes provided by:

Arrivalist

A platform that serves as an always on, panoptic dashboard for any business that wants to understand relevant consumer visitation patterns

Tourism Economics

More than 300 leading companies, associations, and destinations work with Tourism Economics every year as a research partner

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Measures labor market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the U.S. economy to support public and private decision making

Using proven data sources and externally validated fallback and benchmark figures, Impactulator determines a DMO's economic impact as a share of the known impact of tourism on a specific geographic area. The DMO's impact is determined by independently evaluating the four primary impact-generating disciplines found in most tourism promotion organizations:

  1. Marketing and Communications
  2. International and Domestic Tourism Sales
  3. Meeting Sales
  4. Sports Sales

Key data points are then dynamically paired with message-tested narrative elements to present plain-language impact statements.

Impactulator is designed to understate a DMO's impact to ensure plausibility and build stakeholder confidence in the reporting. To this end, only overnight visitation is taken into direct consideration, and the impacts of publicity and earned media are scaled down to that of paid media. Daytrippers and the DMO's impact on sameday visitation is not included in the underlying models. Further, the bulk of the measurement data is "in the year, for the year," which naturally results in decreased observed performance for origins and travellers that typically require longer lead times, such as internation and domestic fly markets.

These terms may appear throughout the website. Additional terms and definitions can be found within the Impactulator reporting interface for active customers.

What percent of passengers at your destination's airport(s) originated from domestic markets?

What percent of passengers at your destination's airport(s) originated from international markets?

What was the average arrival rate to your destination per thousand tracked media exposures?

What was the average arrival rate to your destination per thousand users exposed to tracked media?

Using a report balanced or calibrated against the U.S. Census or equivalent representative sample, how many overnight visitors arrived to your destination regardless of media exposure?

Using a report balanced or calibrated against the U.S. Census or equivalent representative sample, how many same-day visitors arrived to your destination regardless of media exposure?

What was the total number of jobs supported by tourism in the destination for the indicated impact data year?

What was the total local tax generated from tourism in the destination for the indicated impact data year?

What was the total payroll generated from tourism in the destination for the indicated impact data year?

What was the total sales tax generated from tourism in the destination for the indicated impact data year?

What was the total economic impact from tourism in the destination for the indicated impact data year?

What was the total visitor spending from tourism in the destination for the indicated impact data year?

Using a report balanced or calibrated against the U.S. Census or equivalent representative sample, how many visitors arrived to your destination through your destination's airport(s), regardless of media exposure?

According to the latest U.S. Census data, how many households existed in your geographic service region during the data year?

Ensure all the data you enter in this section is sourced from the year you enter here (all other sections should align to the Organizational Data Year in the section above).

Based on your DMO's available research and analytics, how much longer do international visitors stay in your destination compared to domestic visitors?

What were your DMO's total tourism sales expenses for the organizational data year (for proper ROI and value reporting, this should include all sales activity, trade show, representation agency, and related costs)?

What percent of your total overnight visitation for the organizational data year came from international origins?

What were your DMO's total marketing and communications expenses for the organizational data year (for proper ROI and value reporting, this should include all media, production, agency fees, influencer visit, media FAM, press trip, and related costs)?

What was the total circulation of all earned print media exposure that your DMO generated (such as newspapers and magazines)?

How many page views did your DMO generate on earned media sources (such as blogs and news sites)?

How many visitors did your DMO reach through earned media sources (such as blogs and news sites)?

What were your DMO's total meeting and convention sales expenses for the organizational data year (for proper ROI and value reporting, this should include trade show, incentive program, sales activity, and related costs)?

What was the total economic impact of the meetings and conventions secured by your DMO during the organizational data year (this may be provided by the Event Impact Calculator or similar tool)?

How many room nights were consumed directly as a result of your DMO's meeting sales activities for the organizational data year?

What is the maximum number of people simultaneously employed by your organization during the data year?

What were your DMO's total expenses for the organizational data year (for proper ROI and value reporting, this should include every penny paid by the organization)?

Ensure all the data you enter on this form is sourced from the year you enter here (except for the Destination Tourism Economic Impact data in the next section).

What was the propensity for media tracked in a location-based analytics tool to influence overnight stays in your destination? Base the arrival date and media exposure date on the Organizational Data Year

How many visitors stayed overnight in your destination during the same year as represented by the above economic impact data?

How many visitors stayed overnight in your destination during the data year?

What were your DMO's total personnel expenses for the organizational data year (for proper ROI and value reporting, this should include salary, benefits, and related costs of employment)?

What were your DMO's total sports events sales expenses for the organizational data year (for proper ROI and value reporting, this should include trade show, incentive program, sales activity, and related costs)?

What was the total economic impact of the sports events secured by your DMO during the organizational data year (this may be provided by the Event Impact Calculator or similar tool)?

How many room nights were consumed directly as a result of your DMO's sports event sales activities for the organizational data year?

How many paid online impressions did your DMO serve, regardless of whether they were tracked in a location-based analytics tool?

As with any economic impact data, the output from Impactulator is only an estimate and should not be used as the sole determing factor in any organizational decision. Intentional limitations and certain assumptions affect the models used by this tool, just as they affect all other economic models. Known assumptions and limitations include:

  1. Linear linkage between overnight visitation and the destination's tourism economic impact
  2. Similar average visitation impact between tracked and untracked consumer facing media
  3. International visitor spending is only impacted by the length of stay relative to domestic visitors
  4. Spending behaviors of visitors exposed to DMO marketing and sales tactics exactly mirror the spending behaviors of visitors who are not exposed to those tactics