Paul Marden is joined by Professor Jim Deegan, founder of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies at the University of Limerick, and Ernesto Sánchez-Batista, a specialist in destination planning and digital transformation. They discuss how data is reshaping the visitor experience, using the Cliffs of Moher as a real-world case study. The conversation dives into the creation of the new Tourism Data Dashboard, how it’s being used to improve visitor flow, planning, and overall satisfaction, and what this means for the future of tourism and attractions.
This week on Skip The Queue we explore the science behind ensuring good visitor experiences, by looking at the role data has to play in this
Joining me are two experts in this field, Professor Jim Deegan, economist, tourism policy expert, and founder of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies at the University of Limerick, and Ernesto Sánchez- Batista, an expert in destination planning and digital transformation.
Together, they have been instrumental in developing a new Tourism Data Dashboard. This has been utilised to transform the visitor experience at The Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s most iconic landmarks.
Let’s find out how, and what they’ve achieved.
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
Download your FREE copy here: https://pages.crowdconvert.co.uk/skip-the-queue-playbook
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Crowd Convert. We provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world-class digital interactions. Very simply, we're here to rehumanise commerce. Your host is Paul Marden.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn.
Show references:
Jim Deegan - PHD Scholar of Cliffs of Moer Project
Jim Deegan is the Director of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies (NCTPS), University of Limerick(UL), a member of the Economics Department( Head of department, 2011-2016) ) and Professor of Tourism Policy. He is an economist by training and his research interests and publications are in all facets of public policy for tourism. Jim is a highly cited author in tourism economics/policy papers and he acts as a referee for all the top rated international journals in tourism and has served on editorial boards of numerous journals that have included the Cornell Quarterly and Tourism Economics. As director of the NCTPS at UL he has raised more than €6 million through project research and philanthropic donations that has funded research scholarships for more than 25 students to study tourism at postgraduate level. Jim has undertaken project research on behalf of the World Bank, The European Commission, Eurostat, The Irish Government, Failte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, the Marine Institute, the Law Society and many other public and private sector organisations across the world. He was the project lead for the team that delivered Ireland’s first Tourism Satellite Account in 2004.
Jim has served on numerous public and private sector committees/boards on tourism issues over the last 25 years and was a founding member of the Business Tourism Forum of Failte Ireland from 2004 and was appointed to the Board of The National Tourism Development Authority( Failte Ireland) by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in 2013. He is currently a board member of the Birr Scientific and Heritage Foundation. Jim was the founding chairman and a shareholder in Treaty Radio Ltd that was sold to UTV PLC for €15.7million in 2002.
Ernesto Batista Sánchez - PHD Scholar of Cliffs of Moer Project
Ernesto Batista Sánchez is a PhD researcher at the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies (NCTPS), Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. Prior to this, he worked as an Assistant Professor in Tourism programmes at the University of Holguín, Cuba. He graduated with a first-class honours MA in International Tourism from the University of Limerick in 2020 and holds a PhD from the University of Holguín (2024). His research explores the application of technology and data analysis in tourism.
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast telling the story of the world's best visitor attractions and the amazing people that work in them. This week on Skip the Queue, we explore the science behind ensuring good visitor experiences by looking at the role data has to play in this. Joining me are two experts in the field, Professor Jim Deegan, economist, tourism policy expert and founder of the National Centre for Tourism Policy Studies at the University of Limerick, and Ernesto Sanchez-Batista, an expert in destination planning and digital transformation. Together, they've been instrumental in developing a new tourism data dashboard. This has been utilised to transform the visitor experience at the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland's most iconic landmarks.
Paul Marden: Jim and Ernesto, welcome to Skip the Queue.
Jim Deegan: Thank you very much.
Paul Marden: We first met, didn't we, in Waterford at the Avere conference. The room was packed and they were hanging off of your every word as you were talking about tourism and data. Which it's fair to say there's not many conferences you go to where people are hanging off the words of economists and desperate to hear what you've got to say. So I was intrigued and I thought it would make a brilliant episode for us. So fingers crossed, hey? Yeah, fingers crossed. We do our best. Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to play a quick game of this or that for you. If you had a choice of how you spend your day in an attraction, is it roller coasters and the adrenaline-fuelled attractions, or is it the calming vibes of an art gallery for you?
Jim Deegan: For me, I now have a 26-year-old Christmas. So for many years, it was the roller coasters. But no, I'd say increasingly, it's the latter now. But still, I think, you know, there's still a bit of adventure. I'm not that old yet. I think I still want to. I still might like to do a bit. I don't think my wife, Dorothy, would be as keen to go on a roller coaster, though, from previous experiences.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: I will go for the roller coaster indeed. Like, I will go for the adrenaline rush. Oh, there we go. Oh, absolutely. I'm still waiting to have the opportunity to do skydiving. So, I'd say that's the closest I'm going to get for now.
Paul Marden: No, what is the point of jumping out of a perfectly serviceable plane? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.
Paul Marden: Gents, look, as I say, we met at the AVEA conference. You were talking a lot about the Cliffs of Moher project that you've been recently working on and how... You've created this amazing tourism data dashboard. I think it's amazing anyway, but I'm a data geek, so my eyes lit up when you put your demo on screen.
Paul Marden: Before we get to that bit, let's take a step back and think about what's the need for a project like this that focuses on data. So, Jim, just help us to understand from your kind of economics perspective, what are the forces that you think have driven the need for a project like this at Eclipse?
Paul Marden: Why is it so important for attraction operators to be thinking about getting access to good data?
Jim Deegan: Yeah, thanks, Paul. Well, I'll just go back a little bit, right, and I'll try and summarise a lot of history and tourism.
Jim Deegan: That may be important for the context of all of this. So basically, we've always had tourism going back, you know, centuries. The Grand Tour was very important in tourism. But really, the modern form of tourism that we understand really began in the 1950s with the jet engine. The jet engine comes along and it accelerates tourism dramatically. And then that kind of coincides with post-World War II prosperity in Britain and across the world. So basically, tourism developed and it also kind of— tourism is transversal in the sense that it crosses a load of sectors because it's a human activity. And a human activity is, by implication, impacted by all the societal factors. So, for example, improvements in technology, improvements in education, better living standards, and so on. So effectively, what tourism grew from the 1950s.
Jim Deegan: Very quickly in the 1960s and 70s as a mass market business. Generally speaking, people seeking the sun. As I often say to students... A long time ago, when I was growing up, Irish people, when they got some newfound affluence in the 70s or whatever, they would go into a travel agent. They would ask, 'I want to go on holiday.' And the person behind the counter would normally say, 'Well, where do you want to go?' And the answer invariably was the sun.
Jim Deegan: And that was built on this kind of model of tourism, which was supply-driven. People went to places, they got sunburned, they drank sangria, and there was a bit of cultural imperialism about it. They went to places and were surprised that they didn't have their own food or language. And that drove tourism from the 50s to about the 80s. And it was a mass market business. But as society changed and as people began to be more educated, they realized that maybe sitting in the sun all day wasn't so good for you. But also their education changed. So as a result. Tourism in the first branch really was about, you know, escape. But as the 80s and 90s progressed, it became much more an industry that was about experience.
Jim Deegan: So it wasn't just about escaping. It was about an experience. And that really mattered. So you find this industry that grew from 25 million people— that, you know, by the time COVID happened, we had 1. 5 billion people traveling in the world. And obviously, the experience economy was changing things. But also what was changing things was that... It was a growth industry. And we go through phases of geopolitics. So a big push to develop tourism was the advent of new emerging economies who joined the middle classes. OK, so in terms of tourism is always affected by politics, by what you see, like the entry of China to international tourism, what's happening now, particularly with India and the middle classes from India and Brazil and all the emerging economies. So all of this happened and it happened very quickly. But it was also happening in a background where tourism initially was felt to be a very clean industry.
Jim Deegan: It wasn't deemed to be what I'd say, Paul, given your background, technologically very important. It was deemed to be dominated by hospitality.
Jim Deegan: In any case, in that context, then we have a growth industry and that's kind of motoring ahead. And I can always say to students who are teaching about tourism that, when you're talking about tourism, when you read any of the academic journals, that this tourism only really begins to be a discipline in the 80s, led by British academics, really, you know. And when you look at that... When you read the journals, you find the same thing all the time in every article. Tourism is very important. The economic impact is X. And this is basically people who are trying to make it important and sound important. And the basic argument for many years was just the economic impact.
Jim Deegan: There was no notion of the social impact. There was no notion of the environmental impact. So as a result, we have an industry growing up that's growing because of exogenous forces in the economy and society.
Jim Deegan: And so as it grew, there wasn't a great need for data because a lot of what was driving the industry was from people with backgrounds who legitimately data wasn't the big thing. And as a result, the industries were growing. So why would you worry?
Paul Marden: Yeah, so you can, crudely, you could make money out of this business by setting up your stall and living off the growth that was happening within the sector itself. Yeah. You didn't have to graft a way to try and grow your market share and beat the rest of the market because the tide was rising, as it were.
Jim Deegan: Yeah. And I mean, this is the period like a post-World War II prosperity. Yes, we had some. And what's interesting about tourism is why people like it as a business is because... It's very resilient. Despite all of the economic, geopolitical, September the 11th, the thing bounces back so quickly. Yes. And even after COVID, it's bounced back quickly. So the one thing is you have this industry that's growing, but there isn't really a notion that it's very linked to extractive industries in terms of energy. And then, as the footprint of tourism becomes bigger and bigger, that you're finding that there's an economic impact, but there's also an environmental impact. And increasingly, what we've seen is a social impact in terms of the over-tourism debate and so on.
Paul Marden: Yeah, so the pushback that you've seen in quite a few places—like Venice. I know, you know, that's obvious. It's a very small place and you get overrun by cruise ships going in. But this is happening in tourist destinations all over Europe, isn't it?
Jim Deegan: Yeah, I think that's the really big thing. It's not just the cities; it's in areas. And this is a management problem, but it's also an issue. So increasingly, what Ernesto and I would be talking about, and we're working on papers about. There's been a talk of what you might call a paradigm shift in the sector. Now, without being too academic about that, what it really means is the operational model of what firms who operate across tourism and the rest of the economy have to work in is changing. And really what's changing is, belatedly, the recognition of climate change is going to hit us like a boulder. Still a lot of talk about it, but when you're looking for real action on the ground, we're not seeing it. And we live in an experienced economy. But the other one that really matters— forces that matter— are forces of technology, because technology can facilitate demand and tourism, but it also generates demand and tourism. So we're seeing all of that, and we're also seeing big changes in demography where Europe is the geriatric ward of the world.
Jim Deegan: But even new emerging economies like China are beginning to age very fast. So as a result, what that's going to mean is... It's going to mean, no matter how people's lifestyles are changing, but in tourism and other sectors of the economy, as you get older, the one thing that fails everybody is your eyesight. That has a big implication for marketing because I look at brochures that are aimed at certain age cohorts and the font size is too small. The colors are all wrong. And as a result, so one of the things to come to your point, Paul, is that all of these new forces like sustainability, climate change, how businesses have to operate. In other sectors of the economy, the technology is driving that we have a lot of data. Now, sometimes people think that data legitimately has privacy concerns. But Ernesto will talk about what we've been doing in the cliffs in a minute. But effectively, what we're seeing is that I look at tourism businesses I've been working with over the years.
Jim Deegan: And the common kind of thing I've been thinking is that, yes, they're able to grow. But now we're at this critical phase where, think of COVID and the aftereffects of COVID, where people who were working in the sector decided they didn't want to work in it anymore.
Jim Deegan: Think of the great resignation that happened. Think of how quickly tourism digitized during that period, because businesses had to try and have takeaway sales, for example, in restaurants. Now, and then, like I think about the university sector, if you would have told people in the universities, everybody had to go online to teach.
Jim Deegan: God knows how many years it would have taken. Yeah. It happened virtually overnight. Completely. And I think that's a great credit to my colleagues in the education sector all over the world. And it happened in schools and colleges and everywhere. So effectively, you know, what we have is we have all of these changes are happening. And now the need for data, for example, on social issues. So how does your operation impact on the local area in which you live? How do you impact on the economy? Now, as I said, in Ireland, one of the things that's also happening is that the government has decided, and it's been very quite controversial over the last year or two, is that they have significantly increased the minimum wage towards a living wage, which I'm all in favour of. But it's happened very quickly. And tourism business in general was, in productivity terms, not so good because they could always get access to relatively cheap labour.
Jim Deegan: Unskilled labour. That factor is now changing because social legislation across the EU and in Britain as well is raising the wage rate. That, to me as an economist, is going to put a major focus on productivity.
Jim Deegan: How productively can you operate? And therefore, that's where technology comes in. You use technology in the back office and you can use it in the front office to make the customer experience better. So what the project in the Cliffs of Moher was about, as a case study, was to say— and this is very important, Paul— is that could we work for a number of years with a facility? So the Cliffs of Moher is very important, was getting about 1. 5 million visitors.
Jim Deegan: Ireland's most visited outdoor facility.
Paul Marden: And a huge, a very diverse audience, isn't it? I think a large proportion, if not the largest, was American tourists and British.
Jim Deegan: USA, generally speaking, dominates about 49% of the visitors. And when you add in Canada, you get 7% more. Just as a comparison, Irish visitors are about 6%. Probably understandable in some respects. So what all of this was about was technology is changing. The experience economy is changing. Everything is changing in terms of the labor market, in terms of productivity. And the organizations are faced with massive challenges. And those challenges... to a degree, the feeling was if we worked with a facility over a prolonged period, we could possibly look at how this paradigm shift was changing and how that paradigm shift... could be tackled by interventions. Yes. And that's, I think, what Ernesto has been doing very brilliantly and how that is helping to make decisions. At the end of the day, look, we're... People have to make money.
Jim Deegan: If they don't make money, they can't survive. So therefore, this project is about, can we add value to the management, but also simultaneously, can we add value to society by having data that allows us to make better decisions?
Paul Marden: So that context, I find that really, really helpful because I talk to lots of attractions. I talk to my clients. It's a really, really challenging time at the moment. You know, as mere humans, as opposed to academics, we tend to think about the here and now, maybe plus or minus a year or two. It feels like a tough time. But when you zoom back out to the level that you just did, and you look at this over the period of a 50 or 60-year cycle, then you see that there is something monumentally changing that means that we're not just challenged by a couple of bumps in the road at the moment. This is a major shift as... growth slows and you have to find better ways to be more productive in order for you to find that individual growth within the market. And using data is a really interesting way of doing that, isn't it?
Jim Deegan: I'll give you one little snippet, which is kind of off, maybe a little bit off beam, but probably people might understand what I'm getting at here. Japan is the country in the world that really is in the vanguard of the aging of the population. And most significantly, one part of the reason for that is because Japan, through its history, hasn't really been very open to immigration.
Jim Deegan: So as a result, they're a society that's aging very, very quickly. And so there's all kinds of pension issues. But one of the interesting things is their society now, I was watching a video about Japanese men over 80s rugby.
Jim Deegan: Financial Times did a brilliant piece on this, an over 80s rugby team. And it was just amazing in terms of how their health has been impacted and they've learned so much about being, but it wasn't touch rugby. This was physical rugby, right? But interesting, in the same little piece, there was coverage of... how a company in Japan that had made all its money on making diapers or nappies. And because the fertility levels and because of the aging of the population and people are not having children there, this company was faced with major problems. But hey, presto, this might be a little bit sad. That company now makes diapers for elderly people. And that's a case of where demographic change is significant. They've significantly changed their business and what's happening. So I think that tourism is going to face this issue of how do you cope with the changing market.
Paul Marden: And we have to change the level of maturity that we have as a sector towards technology. And embrace it in ways that other sectors may have been doing for a long time. So I've talked before, my career started at British Airways with a real focus on data. So I worked in a team that did data analysis of all of their operational data to figure out where you could make... improvements or to save money or to improve the customer experience. And that was hugely, I found that hugely interesting, that approach within the sector that we're in now. It doesn't exist. And I think that is because many of the operators within the sector don't have the size and heft of a BA to be able to employ. hundreds of data analysts and programmers and data architects and all of those things that you needed 15 years ago to be able to get at a meaningful understanding of data.
Jim Deegan: I mean, we might come back to this, Paul, about the challenge, because I think that for smaller... and visitor attractions.
Jim Deegan: Like the Cliffs of Moher is within the county council in Ireland. And, you know, again, getting money for research is never easy. And I really applaud Geraldine O'Rourke in the Cliffs of Moher for taking a gamble on us. But I think it's fair we might talk later. Ernesto will talk about the learnings we've both learned along the way. And so, for smaller attractions, I guess, is an issue that matters is that, is there money for...
Jim Deegan: people to work with universities to help this market failure and to do the kind of work that Ernesto and I are doing. And that I think is a challenge. I think it's a challenge because of the way the sector has developed.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. Ernesto, let's give you some space for the question. Let's talk a little bit about the data dashboard, the tourism data dashboard that you presented to everybody at the Avia conference.
Paul Marden: Again, it's fair to say that at the conference, it was very visual experience. You had your PowerPoints on stage. You were even brave enough to do a live demonstration to us of this thing. And it caught everyone's attention. But we've got to remember that most of our listeners are listeners. So we're going to paint a picture with words around this data dashboard.
Paul Marden: What does it do? And then how does it help destinations and attractions make better decisions?
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: The first thing that we have to do is we have to go back for a bit because dashboard is a tool at the very end of the day. But before getting to the dashboard and be able to be confident on what we have in the dashboard, we have to learn a lot. in the process. So we go to the cliffs in 2022 during the summer, right? And the first thing we did, and I think the first thing this proves is the concept of collaboration between the industry and our academic partner. in this case, university, but also in terms of trust. They opened their doors for us and they told us, this is all our data. We're open to see what you can come up with from this. So we did a massive dive into the data for two months. And we identified some areas where the data was very good, very consistent. You could rely on overtime. And then, in terms of other areas, like profile of the visitors, we had our ideas, right? So we approached them and said, 'Okay, can we work together?' And again, this is a project that has been... interacting with the industry and with the clients on a very consistent basis.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: So this is not us going there once a year, collecting some data and walking away. We have been in constant communication with them. Because there is knowledge in the companies. Of course. So they had data and we identified some gaps where we could actually develop tools and the dashboard was also used to collect data. But there was also knowledge there. And we were very open to say, 'This is what we think.' But if you think that we are not getting this right, please. Let's talk and let's come with ideas together. So I think that context is important because from there we learned a lot. So we went there, we started applying surveys. The first thing we knew is we need to know who the visitors are. We need to know their nationality. We need to know if they're coming with families, with friends, couple. And we did a census for over a year. And we went to the very basis. We went to paying on paper and we applied surveys. And we learned from there. One of my first magic ideas was, oh, I'm going to have a QR code printed. I'm going to give it to people and I'm going to get all my data every day. But I was there and I had people also there working with us.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: And the first learning was that after two days collecting data with the QR code, we realized that... We were getting a massive proportion of visitors who were between 18 and 24 years old. But being on site and observing was telling me this is wrong.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: You have, it's a bias, right? So then we said, okay, this doesn't work. So we had to go back. We found a magic spot in the visitor center that we could have access to all the visitors. And then we benchmarked our numbers, predicting the system. So we could be confident with the data.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: And we had a staff. The company supported us. We trained the staff members that worked with us. So we were able to apply a software for over a year. And we had a very strong profile of the visitors. But then we realized, hold on a second. What if we use technology to improve this? And we realized that the Wi-Fi is there.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: We decided, okay, let's try to change the questions and let's try to apply the same survey without asking for any personal information. This is GDPR compliant. All I want to know is: is the business account by car or coach in a very simple way? If you have too many questions or you start to ask people to type data, it becomes very messy and they don't want to do it. And it's fair to them. They are having an experience, and they are with families. In places like Ireland, some days you have a lot of rain, so you are wet. The last thing you want to be doing is typing in a lot of things with your cold hands, right?
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: So we changed the questions. We removed anything that was personal. So we were just making a profile of the visitors and we kept our other survey just to be sure that, hold on, the Wi-Fi is not atypical. We're getting good data. And for over a year, we collected data and then we came up with this tool.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: That provides in real time data. So the dashboard, it's a tool. that you can log in through a secure link as a company, and you can have a visual, simple way to summarize your data. You can have different filters if you want to know about Americans coming to the eclipse on a specific month or today. You can have it as a snapshot, but then once you have the data, what can you do with the data? So it has been not only about developing a tool to collect data, but then how can we work with the marketing team? With the operations team, in terms of understanding the visitor flows by opening hours, when does it get busy? Are the car visitors similar to those coming by bus? What can we do about them? So again, we have been working together then with them with the tool that allowed us to see on real time. And now because we have data for more than two years, we can actually compare and benchmark against last year. So now we're seeing, okay. This year, our market is similar, or this year, a specific market is changing.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: So what can we do about that?
Paul Marden: So you start off then looking at the data that they've already got access to, which is coming from their ticketing system and telling you all about... who you've got walking through the door. You then start your paper and pen survey, talking to people as they walk through the door. But that's not very efficient, is it? Because it takes quite a lot of human effort to be able to gather that. And you saw that it was skewed. What makes you think that moving to surveying using the Wi-Fi, which is really interesting, but how is that not? potentially skewed.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: Exactly. And that's a valid point. So this methodology we have developed and we're hoping to get published in the next few months is about having another mechanism of verification.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: In our case, we believe that. So you need a routine system to tell you at least the total numbers and proportions. In this case, those going by car or coaches, right?
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: Then you have the Wi-Fi survey that is supposed to be reflecting that. And if you start seeing changes on that, then you have an issue. And then the third mechanism is, okay, you don't have to do surveys every day.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: But you need to have a consistent survey every now and then to verify that, okay, the proportions I'm getting from my survey and from my Wi-Fi are accurate. And if you start to see a difference there, you have to triangulate the data to be sure that... This is not coming from only one source, and this is not only coming from the Wi-Fi or not only coming from the survey, but we have different mechanisms to verify. Now, the beauty of having a good ticketing system that tells you not only the totals, but also because you register the transaction, it will show you in terms of aggregated data. the flows by opening hours, if you can benchmark that against a Wi-Fi that usually records the timestamp of the connection, and then you have the proportions and then you have the survey, then you have a very good picture. And again, I feel this is, if you have researchers working with a company... Go and talk to people. Go and talk to those staff members who are there for a good number of years. And sometimes they will give you a hint of this might not be right or this is actually great.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: I remember last year when we were there two years ago. A staff member, senior staff member told me, you know what, in September, your data is going to show a massive movement towards visitors over 55 years old. I was like, oh, hold on now. I'm going to be very curious. So I was waiting like a child for September, not for Christmas, but for September, right? She used to see my data. Is she right? And guess what? She was right.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: But now, when you have such a massive volume, and what the Wi-Fi provides is a massive volume. Yeah, with your server, you can get a good number of responses, but the Wi-Fi goes 10 times higher than that. So when you have such a big volume of data and you know it's good and it's reliable, then you can start narrowing that down. I want to know more about German visitors who are between 25 and 35 years old. How different are they from those Americans? Or even more, since you have monthly data, are the visitors the same in January and April, in July, in September? So once you have that and you have the difference in those segments, then you can start creating and pointing to different experiences for each of them. How can you personalize experience? And then you move away from what you were saying before about that mass tourism model. So if you apply the same concept, yeah, yeah, okay, you have 1. 5 million visitors going to the cliffs, but none of them are the same.
Paul Marden: Yes.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: And they're actually changing over the year. Like we have data that shows how different it is. And we have the difference between families coming in the summer months and then you have a group of friends or couples coming. In the off-season months, we know how different they are from each other, and even in terms of nationality. But even more, when you're there talking to people, well, you come with surprises. And I think one of the surprises we had was we had our survey for the profile, but we want to know more. Because in order to be able to provide a good experience, an authentic experience, you also have to find out about motivations. You need to find out about loyalty, how happy they are, how satisfied they are. And all the questions we had back in 2023 during the summer were, okay, guys, why are you coming to the kids? What's the main motivation, right? And you would expect to get the nature, culture, landscape. Ireland is a beautiful country. And suddenly we started getting people telling us we're coming because of the weather. Jesus Christ, if you say that to an Irish person, that's...
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: And to a Cuban one, applying the service is even worse, right?
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: So this summer, Dan, we say, OK, you know what? Let's actually do this on a serious way. Last summer, we had people pointing out of the world. So let's just ask them, are you coming because of the weather? Or at least is this inflation your decision?
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: Well, guess what? Yeah, actually, demographic people are changing. And this is not the case for all the visitors. And again, all the visitors are not the same. Americans are coming because of the culture and the heritage and that link between Ireland and the US. However, visitors coming from countries that have been suffering from heat waves during the summer are saying, we're trying to escape to countries. with moderate temperature conditions. So we have visitor things coming from France telling us we can't be here, it's too warm.
Paul Marden: That was absolutely... So since we were at AVEA together, I was at the National Visitor Attraction Conference in London. There was a real talk about that. volatility of the climate and how can attractions make themselves more adaptable to the volatility. And it's not just about, classically people think about, oh, you're a wet weather attraction or you're a sunny attraction. No, no, no, no. Do you have somewhere that you can sit in shade outdoors so that you're not overcome by the heat necessarily? Or, you know, there's so much more about those drivers of weather and the impact they have.
Paul Marden: I think you've taken me to a point which is really important, which is you've gathered loads of data. You've validated that it's accurate. You've done all of your triangulation to make sure that you're not skewing the results that you found.
Paul Marden: That's just interesting to you and me because we all like data.
Paul Marden: But the people that operate the attractions, they're interested in running an attraction. So how do you translate that data into better decision-making in the attraction? What can they do with the dashboard that you've created that enables them to operate differently?
Jim Deegan: Okay, so I'll give you some things that helped with this. So in terms of public policymaking, for example. So the first thing is that, within Ireland, there's a perception that people who go to the tips of Moher are on a day bus. And this thing grew up— oh God, this is no use to the region because they only come down and they hop off the bus, they hop back on and they go back, right? First of all, what the data did from the dashboard in particular and the survey said only 12% of the visitors are on a day trip. And even more importantly... even though I'm from Dublin and I admit it and say it, but not everybody is coming from Dublin. There are other cities in Ireland that people are from, right? But even more importantly, from that piece of information when we gathered it, we began to think about, you know, which, as an economist, is very important for the economic footprint. And there'll always be, across the world, there'll always be people saying, we don't get any business.
Jim Deegan: Now, if there's one and a half million visitors and you're saying you don't get any visitors, I would think you need to get into a new business. Because if you can't capitalize on a million and a half people on your doorstep, it doesn't say much for the innovation and what you're doing in your business. So the first thing is, is that issue we began to measure. Now, it's not just the dashboard. I think it's important. It's the surveys that we're doing, which I guess is part of being involved with a university because we're interested in things that could help the attraction.
Jim Deegan: So Ernesto, over a summer month, and he might talk more about it, over the last few years, we've been looking at visitors and asking them this critical question. Where did you stay last night?
Jim Deegan: Where are you staying tonight? And where are you staying tomorrow night? And from that, we were able to develop these heat maps.
Jim Deegan: Which can show where people are going and getting rid of some of the myths that are out there about, you know, we don't get any business, this doesn't happen. And of course, the other part about this is it shows that in Ireland, of the one and a half million people who go to the Cliffs of Moher, 88% of them are coming from Dublin or arrived via Dublin. Now that may provide a public policy argument perhaps to try and convince the airlines to fly into Shannon Airport, who are already in Dublin. Yes. So I'd say is on that one alone. Now, Ernesto did a lovely piece of work on coach arrivals. And I think what's important for people to maybe, it didn't seem like special pleading, but I'll go ahead with it anyway, is that when you kind of begin to work with universities and we gain a lot, but you also get, you mentioned the point earlier on about big animals like British Airways having analysts and so on. So what happened is when you're getting involved with us on a project, you're also buying into people like ourselves and others who've got other expertise.
Jim Deegan: So one of the issues that matters an awful lot of the time, which we can't underestimate is a lot of data is there and never analyzed.
Jim Deegan: So this is where Ernesto came into play. There's a great story about the coach arrivals that he might let you know now, Paul.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: Yeah, look, I think...
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: We need to be clear— like, you have the data, but then you need to look at the data, and the data needs to be looked at in different ways to what you need. And I think this is the learning. Otherwise, assuming the data as this big monster is just the same concept of mass tourism. No, no, no. Once you have the data, what can you do with that? And how can you personalize the analysis you're doing? So I'm going to give you a couple of examples. We have been working with the sales and marketing team right on site. So, well, we have the dash for giving us a profile of the visitors. And we have been working with them. Okay, we know that there is a peak in the domestic segment around a bank holiday based on our service of data. But what can you do to create advertisement on social media for them? to come booking advance. We have been looking into the data from the ticketing system in terms of coach arrivals. What we saw is that policies that they implemented in terms of making sure that coaches had to book in advance.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: They had to arrive on time. They managed to reduce the number of coaches arriving, but then at the same time, increasing the average number of visitors per coach. So this is a great experience because now you have less coaches on the road, less impact outside your doors. For the environment, it's great because you're reducing the amount of carbon emissions. And for the coach companies, it's great because they have more people.
Jim Deegan: I think, Paul, I'm sorry to interrupt, Ernesto, but there is a critical figure that always strikes me. Since this work began and comparing to 2019, there were 8,200 fewer buses arriving to the Cliffs of Moher. And that, to me, is fascinating. Because, I mean, one of the other issues in a rural area would be congestion.
Jim Deegan: So, 8,200 buses less, less as Ernesto says, less environmental damage.
Paul Marden: I bet you that by reducing the number, by spreading them out more effectively over the day, increasing the occupancy rate of those buses. But crucially, spreading them over the day meant they probably spent more money whilst they were on site because they were less congested. If all the buses arrived at the same time, you'd have loads of buses, resulting in a really bad experience because too many people would be clashing at the same time. Nobody wants to walk through the gift shop and buy if the queue is at the door. Nobody wants to stop and eat food if the queue is ridiculously long. So when you optimize for those sorts of things, you get loads of benefits in terms of raising secondary spend, I would imagine.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: Absolutely. And that's a good point. So the data show that implementing the policy and being able to monitor that, they managed to displace almost 7% of the bosses arriving in the peak hours to the early mornings. It's quiet. So that's the story. But then how can you help in terms of visitor management? Because coaches rely on spaces to be parked. and to avoid issues outside. Yep. And they have been working on a weekly basis. And this is the story of, this is not a project that just goes there once a year and walks away. This is a weekly project, a day-to-day basis communication. Well, we have been monitoring coaches arriving on time. You are supposed to arrive at a specific time slot. Are you doing it? And being able to do that, they managed to increase more than 11% the number of coaches arriving on time. And I was looking at the data this morning, and there are over 90% of the coaches arriving on time this month, which is fantastic.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: But especially when you're getting really busy, in the busiest months when you have a lot of visitors coming and you're trying to give that authentic experience and you don't want to be overcrowded, if you can monitor that and then you can engage with the stakeholders.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: And then, Jim, sorry about your company. Your bosses are giving me issues every week. Can we do something about that?
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: It's very good for the company. So we have been using data in different ways. I think it's a good concept for each element of the company. So the department of the company, they will have different needs. Listening to them, trying to see if we can actually answer that data needs as an organization and then working together as us. And again, it's about collaboration and it's about trust. Yes. Actually works. And then you can monitor that. I think a good one that we have been doing a piece of work with big data.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: and user-generated content. And again, the cliffs are a unique place because it's located inside a geopark. So you have to also be responsible, like very responsible, about management and how do you protect the natural assets.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: One of the interesting things we saw, like visitors that are going there, are very, very worried about sustainability.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: One of the iconic things they're going to see is not only the views of the cliffs but also the puffing. It's that little bird that lives around the cliffs and how important it is for their experience to be able to see that. What are you doing as a company to protect them? How are you making sure that your operation is not damaging the area? But when you have the data, it's very easy to tell a story. It is very easy to tell you: look, yeah, I know a lot about my customers, but I also know a lot about my environmental footprint. I know that I have been reducing the amount of water I use per visitor over the last few years.
Jim Deegan: I'd say, Ernesto, that what Ernesto is talking about here is another piece of work that we were doing just in its infancy, but it's basically scraping the data down from TripAdvisor and Google. Oh, interesting. And that's what saying what are people saying online about the facility and then categorizing it in a particular way. Now, that's really, I suppose, it shows, again, working with an institution that has an interest in publishing stuff. But also, I was amazed when we looked at this, about the puffin, became a really big part of what people think is important. And that's something that wouldn't immediately strike you as being important.
Paul Marden: So looking back at my experience of doing data analysis and reporting on things, my gut feeling is that the things that you've described as the interesting impacts it's had on different parts of the organization were probably not the things that the organization thought they were going to get from this when they started. I bet you that there was a bunch of questions that they had in mind, and it's not until they started down the road did they realize what was possible with the data that they had, the questions that they hadn't ever even thought of asking you, that you've been able to then go and gather the data and help them to answer.
Jim Deegan: Well, I think that's a really key point, Paul, because when we began this process, I mean, it's a long history to it and my relationship with Clare County Council and supporting things I was trying to do. But Geraldine Enright. I think really smart lady. But I say Geraldine probably thought to herself, 'Look, I want to be a good citizen here.
Jim Deegan: I'll respond to this guy, you know, and I don't really know, but I think that she was trying to do a good thing anyway. Now she is very foresighted. So I think she probably had ideas that we would throw things up. But for me, a really light bulb moment. And I think Ernesto was the same. We were presented to some senior people up there. And one, I mean, again, I have my, my own wife, who was an accountant. So I obviously respect what accountants do. And the one thing when we arrived for the clips.'
Jim Deegan: Was that we knew the numbers that were being counted were right because the accountants had the revenue from the numbers. Outside of that, there wasn't an awful lot that was incredibly useful.
Jim Deegan: So we were presenting in the early days and a really smart guy was in the room all the time. And I could just sense from day one a healthy degree of cynicism. And maybe he felt we were going to turn up and go away and do a lot of stuff that nobody was interested in. And one day, Ernesto and I were driving back from the cliffs and we both more or less said it. Did you see X suddenly was taking photographs of the data graphs?
Jim Deegan: And since then, what Ernesto is articulating, I think, is that we can see people who are in the organization.
Jim Deegan: Who are now getting access to what we've been doing because, to some degree, in the early days, it was protected because, you know, it's an expert. But now it's beginning to filter out. And I think that even small things like road studies that the county council are doing. I think the data we have on the bus arrivals and so on are actually very useful. So that's kind of what economists would call a positive externality to having this data seeping out across the organisation and elsewhere.
Paul Marden: We've managed to make this whole episode without too much economist geek speak. But I think a positive externality is the peak of economics geek speak.
Paul Marden: Look, this has been brilliant. I'm sure, confidently say, that we could talk endlessly about the data that you've gathered. But let's just, one last question. Let's just... bring this back to our core listeners, those attraction operators, suppliers to the sector. Let's just think a little bit about what are the first steps that you would recommend they take on a journey to help them to become more... data-driven organizations. Yeah.
Jim Deegan: Okay. So the first thing I'd say is that, from my point of view, looking at data in tourism for a long time, is that there's an obligation, first of all, on us as academics and others to present data in a meaningful way.
Jim Deegan: People say, 'That could be useful,' right? So I think the first thing is, is that it's an obligation on our side to present stuff that actually has a resonance with the management. Now, I think that comes from something Ernesto said earlier about cooperation.
Jim Deegan: Not coming to this with a one-sided view, but to believe from the start that there is a mutuality of interest. And I think that that's the first thing our obligation in the university sector is to reach out a bit more in a better way and not to be geekish. and to distill down, you know, the things that, because at the end of the day, we are interested in producing papers, perhaps in journals that nobody will ever read. And, you know. Certainly not many operators. I can remember one time a good colleague of mine here at the university published a paper and it was about kind of a very technical thing about basically how public sector money was somewhat being wasted. Right. And I can remember the guy who was head of the organization that was involved asking this question, where is this going to appear? And when the person said, oh, it's in wherever, econometrica or something, he said, oh, thanks be to God, no one will ever read that.
Jim Deegan: I think that there is an obligation, first of all. The second thing, Ernesto will come in now because he's been closer to the people up there. I think there's... for people to go on a journey, they have to kind of have some idea where they want to go. Yeah. And I think that's about trying to convince advocates.
Jim Deegan: and supporting the advocates and organizations. Now, I do think, Paul, that as we go on and we have more younger people, but not just younger people, people who think a bit differently. So I think we do need some disciples.
Jim Deegan: And Geraldine O'Rourke has been the disciple of the Cliffs. But I think, hopefully, now we have the data, we will be able to at least make some of the arguments that will have a resonance with people.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: I think... You have to be honest with yourself as an organization, right? And be open. There is no criticism if you don't have the data. The world has been operating in a different way for many years and it's just changing, and you're just reacting to the change. So if you don't have data for a specific need, it's fine. Now, what can you do to start collecting the data is another story. And you need to know what you want to get. Again, it's not a one-fit solution. Every organization would be different. The needs are different because it's all about that. It's how different are you from the others and how can you make yourself different. Then, well, how can data help you? Yes. Otherwise, you're going back to the same idea of... Big data masterism is the same. And it's not the same. And I feel don't underestimate the knowledge that you have of your own company. And those who are working with you and helping you engage with them to support you in the needs for data collection.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: I know there are a lot of small companies and for them it's hard. But you have a lot of good people there that, if you engage with them and you train them and you engage with universities, can help you.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: and engage in this collaboration, a lot can actually be done.
Ernesto Sanchez-Batista: There is a lot of data there, but it's about being sure that the data you're collecting is consistent. And from there, you can start building up.
Jim Deegan: I'd say, Paul, one of the things that matters in this is that something we touched upon earlier is that...
Jim Deegan: If the industry people themselves don't see this as being important, it's probably unlikely that the politicians who dish out the money would think it's important. So, I mean, in the Irish case, you know, I would say, and I'd say it publicly many times. This reflects history. We have an organization in Ireland, a great organization called TAGUSC, and TAGUSC is devoted completely to how science interacts with the university sector. They fund PhDs about all kinds of things. So to the extent now that farmers know... If Betsy the cow is sick by a sensor, that will have an impact on milk yield. And the reason they can do that is because of the interaction with the very smart engineers and scientists and so on. And I just think that we probably need, and academics are as much at fault if anybody is for this, of maybe not integrating as much with the business sector and really understanding.
Jim Deegan: I think there's a mutuality of interest that has really to be explored.
Paul Marden: That is a great place for us to bring our conversation to an end. I completely agree. We need to work together more, don't we? We need to explore the opportunities of all the amazing assets that we've already got and then figure out how do we... enrich the data with surveys and data gathering and finding all those interesting questions within the business that can be answered by uh by good data yeah absolutely gents it has been wonderful talking to you again it's really nice so we were in a room with i don't know 150 other people listening to you talk i've had the benefit of that all by myself it's been wonderful thank you cheers.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please like it and share it in your podcasting app. It really does help other people to find us. Transcripts and links to everything we've discussed today can be found on our website, skipthequeue . fm. Skip the Queue is brought to you by CrowdConvert. We provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world-class digital interactions. Very simply, CrowdConvert is here to re-humanize commerce.
Paul Marden: Today's episode was written by Emily Burrows and Sammi Entwistle from Plaster. Editing was by Steve Folland and production was by Wenalyn Dionaldo. Thanks for listening and see you next week.