piece of equipment that resembles a credit card machine can read the Go Cards, smart phones, and QR codes for Smart Destinations customers at each tourist site.
Smart Destinations’ approach is saving through bulk, as it can negotiate the discounts with tourist attractions by getting them high customer volume in exchange, says McLaughlin. “We don’t devalue them,” he says. “We help get people to the door.”
And, of course, Smart Destinations’ cards work as a marketing service for the tourist sites, most of which don’t have big enough budgets to do big advertising campaigns on their own, says McLaughlin.
“We’re an interesting business in a part of the travel industry that flies under the radar,” he says.
Perhaps what’s most interesting is how the company blends local marketing with the travel demographic through a simple user interface. We’ll see if it stays under the radar for much longer.
Author: Erin Kutz
Erin Kutz has a background in covering business, politics and general news. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University. Erin previously worked in the Boston bureau of Reuters, where she wrote articles on the investment management and mutual fund industries. While in college, she researched for USA Today reporter Jayne O’Donnell’s book, Gen Buy: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-Somethings Are Revolutionizing Retail. She also spent a semester in Washington, DC, reporting Capitol Hill stories as a correspondent for two Connecticut newspapers and interning in the Money section of USA Today, where she assisted with coverage on the retail and small business beats. Erin got her first taste of reporting at Boston University’s independent student newspaper, as a city section reporter and fact checker and editor of the paper’s weekly business section.
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