the cvb exec

Diann Bayes

The Love Boat Meets Augmented Reality
Fall 2011

DIANN BAYES, CTC, is executive director of the McKinney Convention & Visitors Bureau. Diann recently earned the Technology & Communications Certification from the Texas Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus (TACVB).

MPG: Tell us briefly what attracted you to the hospitality industry.
Diann: I’ve always joked that it all started when I was a child, watching The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. I wanted to grow up and be Cruise Director Julie McCoy or Island Greeter Mr. Roark. I suppose they were preparing me for my future in the hospitality industry.

I began my career at a hotel in Fort Worth working in sales, marketing and human resources. I moved to Kansas for about six years, first in the hotel industry and later as a tourism sales manager for the Manhattan CVB in Manhattan, Kansas (the Little Apple).

Having majored in English, I love a good story and working in the CVB industry, for me, is all about telling the story of your community. McKinney has been my home for almost five years and I have been fortunate to tell the story about the 5th Best Place to Live in America.

Have you enjoyed the support of any mentors?
I had an incredible mentor when I first got into the hotel industry and then another when I began my career working at a bureau.

Bob Jameson, GM at The Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth, taught me a very important lesson – no job is beneath you. I saw Bob visit with every employee about their lives while serving them lunch in the staff cafeteria and he was never afraid to get his hands dirty.

Becky Blake started a CVB from the ground up and worked for one community for 25 years. Her lesson consisted of three simple words – pick your battles. As a new sales manager, I wanted desperately to prove I knew what I was doing and would occasionally speak up in situations when I shouldn’t have. Becky had the good sense to take me aside and teach me that not every battle needs to be won. Great advice!

Talk about “trust” in developing business relationships. How does technology - “high tech - low touch” - fit into the process?
Developing trusting and positive relationships among clients, CVB’s and venues is absolutely necessary to have successful meetings and events. Planners should be able to trust the CVB staff to steer them toward venues that best fit their specific needs and trust the venue will follow through with their requests. While face-to-face communication still exists and is THE most important form of communication, having the ability to correspond through email, telephone, text messaging and social media, to name a few, offers planners, bureaus and venues additional communication options.

In laymen’s terms, tell us about the new mobile technology that you implemented in McKinney.
We are fortunate in McKinney to be the home of Zynga with Friends (formerly New Toy, Inc.), the developers of the popular smart phone app Words with Friends. Seeing how popular apps were for Zynga, we decided to produce an app for McKinney. Zynga introduced us to a company in the metroplex, Triangle Studios, app developers originally from The Netherlands. With their guidance, we were able to produce a wonderful app, Visit McKinney Texas, offering inform-ation about our city right in the palm of your hand.

One feature we chose to include is called Augmented Reality. With it, the viewer just holds their phone in front of them, like holding a camera, and the Augmented Reality feature projects the information on their screen. They simply point the phone in the direction of a restaurant, a hotel or an attraction they would like to know more about, and the information is presented to them automatically. Turn it in the direction of another restaurant and the information changes instantly. It’s that simple.

While the Augmented Reality feature only works when you are in McKinney, visitors are still able to see the various offerings in McKinney through list and map locations. To experience the Visit McKinney Texas app on your iPhone or Droid, go to the iTunes store or the Android Market and download it for yourself.

What advice do you have for other bureau directors who want to learn more about how the mobile technology can support their destination marketing?
Research. Research. Research.

Review the available technology and determine what fits best for your community. In Texas, we are fortunate to be members of TACVB and are able to query our fellow CVB’s on any subject. It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel. Just make sure it’s headed down the track in the direction you want it to go. When conducting your research, check to see what other similar organizations are doing. We reviewed apps from cities not only in Texas but around the world. From viewing the various apps, we were able to pick and choose what we thought would work best for us. More is planned for our Visit McKinney Texas app but we are happy with our current product.

Look to the future ... what do you see with respect to travel and meetings?
Great strides have been made in technology to allow business people to meet without leaving the comfort of the office. However, I still believe there is a need to ‘break bread’ together and have face-to-face meetings. Also, having individuals come together at meetings offers members a more level playing field when it comes to the sharing of ideas, which allows for more open and honest discussions.

Any final thoughts?
Technology is a useful tool for enhancing communications. Allow it to work for you but be cautious not to misuse it.   

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