Destination Data, Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Unified data, security, technology and AI strategy
This year, the Destination Data, Technology and AI Department successfully developed and implemented an approved, comprehensive three-year strategy in alignment with the Bureau's Business Plans and Wake County's Destination Strategic Plan. It's designed to unify data systems, strengthen cybersecurity and embrace emerging technologies like cloud computing and AI. The strategy provides a clear roadmap for innovation and operational excellence, integrating advanced AI solutions, secure and scalable technology and a centralized data lake. This unified strategy positions the Greater Raleigh CVB to engage visitors in new ways, empower partners with actionable intelligence and future-proof the Bureau’s digital infrastructure in support of Wake County’s thriving tourism economy.
Destination app for parks and trails
To improve the visibility, usability and accessibility of Wake County's parks and trail networks, the Greater Raleigh CVB, the Triangle Trails Initiative and technology partner Wander developed a Wake County destination app, collaborating with parks countywide and elevating their trail mapping efforts. By partnering with Wake County municipalities, we developed a centralized, data-unified platform that links all parks and county trails, providing information on nearby points of interest such as breweries, museums and more (powered by the Bureau's data). This destination app includes a safety tool for exact location services and gamification functionality (allowing the CVB to incentivize park and trail visitors with prizes). This effort supports the Wake County Destination Strategic Plan's Quality of Place priority by encouraging parks countywide and municipalities to connect and continue to plan for interconnectivity and collaboration in planning, development and programming. The app will be used to attract more outdoor enthusiasts to the destination and to serve those already planning trips to Raleigh and Wake County.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) deployment
In collaboration with the Administration department, the Destination Data, Technology and AI Department implemented and deployed a cloud-based ERP system called NetSuite. This system integrates data, increases efficiency and streamlines management data workflows in the areas of finances, expenses and purchasing, and in alignment with the Bureau's CRM, marketing, sales, services and operations, utilizing shared fields. Additionally, AI can be utilized to enhance efficiency in collecting vendor bills. AI reduces the need for human data input and automates the invoice capture process, which allows for faster and more accurate extraction of invoices. Invoices are scanned, and an AI-powered system identifies the document's objects and performs optical character recognition to automatically obtain the necessary information for filling the billing record.
Threshold 360 virtual tour analytics
The Threshold 360 independent platform integrates with visitRaleigh.com, offering immersive virtual, 360° tour content of destination assets like attractions and meeting hotels. Over the fiscal year, this platform has recorded 1.16 million total clicks and 941,542 Google views, demonstrating strong visibility across search platforms. With an engagement rate of 22.97% and 43,051 360° tour video completions, users showed a high level of interaction and interest in exploring Wake County attractions virtually. The platform supported 21,024 unique users with 0.25% click-through rates, indicating opportunities to further enhance call-to-action strategies. These insights reflect the success of integrating virtual experiences into our digital strategy, which drives awareness, engagement and trip planning.
Partner advertising through DTN
This year, in collaboration with the Marketing and Communications Department, the visitRaleigh.com advertising program through partner Destination Travel Network yielded a total of 23 million ad impressions for Bureau partners' advertising, which is the number of times our advertisements were displayed to users, indicating broad visibility. These online ads generated 65,100 clicked referrals, defined as the number of times users clicked on the advertisements and were directed to advertisers' content on our site or their own content, demonstrating strong user engagement and interest.
Generative AI (GAI) Agent
The GAI Agent on visitRaleigh.com utilized GRCVB-branded content data to deliver personalized and timely responses to visitor queries. The GAI Agent responded to over 9,800 messages from more than 3,200 users, saving approximately 267 staff hours and improving efficiency in user support. Additionally, 58% of chats occurred outside regular business hours, indicating its usefulness for off-hours destination inquiries. The most common topics addressed were learning about events, planning visits and creating itineraries. Additionally, new language support and enhanced event-related functionality were implemented.
Website: Google data
Through visitRaleigh.com, our primary digital marketing platform, we achieved notable outcomes in promoting our destination. Our website's URLs ranked high in Google searches, appearing 115 million times and attracting 2.8 million potential visitors who explored our informative content. Our webpages received 7.5 million views, indicating pertinent and relevant information for various segments (visitors, locals, event planners and sports and esports event planners). These numbers demonstrate our effectiveness in implementing digital innovation strategies to increase interest and awareness of Wake County.