Traveltech Case Study: The List & Visit Brighton

 
 

Effective Uses of Data for Destinations

The List

The List is the UK's leading live events data business (gigs, theatre, festivals, days out etc.). It uses AI and semantic processes to collect, merge and deduplicate complex and fragmented live events data at scale. At any one time it has up to 48,000 different events with more than half a million performances - the most comprehensive, accurate and far reaching set of UK data of its kind.

As well as publishing this data itself, The List provides information and services to a growing range of partners including travel companies, accommodation providers, media groups, transport providers and destination marketing organisations. There are two main uses of this data - firstly to help inspire people to visit a town, city or country. Secondly the data is used as business intelligence to help organisations predict future demand which allows them to better manage their resources and pricing.

Visit Brighton

VisitBrighton is the destination management organisation (DMO) for Brighton, and sits within Brighton and Hove City Council. They promote Brighton as a creative city with a blend of modern culture and exotic architecture, sea and countryside, and a distinctive free-spirited atmosphere you won’t find anywhere else.

Visit Brighton’s key objective is to encourage visits throughout the year and to convert day trips into staying breaks. Their main selling point is the wide variety of eclectic events hosted in the destination throughout the year. Live events (music, theatre, festivals, days out) are a huge driver of tourism. In fact, Eventbrite estimates that about 35% of the visitor economy is driven by a live event. However:

The Data Challenge for Visit Brighton

  • The data is difficult to collect manually

  • ·It is messy and has to be collected from a huge range of providers, using entirely different systems, none of which talk to each other.

  • ·The pandemic and ensuing lockdowns meant unprecedented levels of event cancellations and rescheduling.

  • This made collection even harder. It meant greater time spent by Visit Brighton staff keeping data up to date, and further reduced the numbers of live events that could be published on the website.

The Solution

The List collects data from ticketing APIs, direct from box offices and through user generated upload forms. It then uses sophisticated AI and semantic web processes to merge, deduplicate and clean live events data at scale.

This process allows it to collect many more events than a destination can manage by itself, saving the DMO time and money in the process. It is able to automatically publish all its events data on VisitBrighton’s website thanks to a clever integration with Simpleview, the UK’s leading Destination Marketing Organisation software platform.

Find out more about the results of The List’s work with Visit Brighton and what impact this has had on the destination. Click on the button below.

If you’re interested in hearing more about how The List works with tourism and hospitality organisations, watch our Doing Data Better for Tourism event recap to hear from Brendan Miles of The List. Alternatively, check out The List website.

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