NASHVILLE, December 12, 2018 — Today, the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development announced a partnership with CrowdRiff, an AI-powered visual content marketing platform, to launch the Tennessee UGC Partner Network, the first visual content sharing network of its kind to be launched by a U.S. state destination marketing organization.
This network enables individual tourism organizations operating within the state of Tennessee to surface the best user-generated visual content for their destination and share their curated content on a dedicated page of Tennessee’s tourism website, tnvacation.com. The network is open to destinations, attractions, museums and tourism businesses within Tennessee, several of whom are already using the CrowdRiff platform including Visit Music City, Visit Sevierville, and Visit Franklin; the first destination worldwide to use CrowdRiff.
“We are pleased to partner with CrowdRiff on the first UGC Partner Network for Tennessee,” said Kevin Triplett, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. “Every day thousands of visitors share their Tennessee experiences across social media. With this partner network, we are able to utilize even more opportunities to showcase authentic Tennessee user-generated content. That, alongside contributions from our partners highlighting Tennessee, helps drive travel across the state.”
Every day, locals and visitors alike share photos of their experiences in Tennessee on social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. This authentic content is highly influential to travelers trying to decide what parts of the state to see and experience during their visits.
Through this new partnership, the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development can rely on the expert curation of their local partners to surface and share the best destinations/attractions in the area. For example, if the marketing team at Visit Franklin showcases photos of their Dickens at Christmas event with travelers via the state’s tnvacation.com, they amplify their organic reach through the state website, enable the state to showcase more local attractions, all while leveraging user-generated content (UGC) to tell their story.
“We’re very excited to help destinations and attractions in Tennessee more effectively engage with their audiences and attract visitors using user-generated content,” said Dan Holowack, co- founder and CEO of CrowdRiff. “The Partner Network not only makes it easier for local destinations to source relevant, top-quality user-generated visual content, it also helps them save time on their marketing efforts, collaborate with the state, and ultimately attract a more diverse audience by leveraging UGC to showcase real customer experiences.”
Consumers rely heavily on user-generated content when making purchasing decisions because it tends to resonate as more genuine than branded content. In fact, according to a 2014 study from Ipsos and Crowdtap, millennials (individuals between the ages of 18 and 36) trust UGC 50% more than any other media and find it 20% more influential on their purchasing decisions than all other media types. The same study found 40% of millennials use UGC to help inform their travel decisions, further making the case for travel and tourism-related companies to integrate this kind of content into their marketing strategies.
About CrowdRiff
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CrowdRiff is an AI-powered visual content marketing platform purpose-built for destinations, attractions, museums and resorts. The platform combines content discovery, digital asset management, and content delivery tools that enable marketers to source and share top- performing visuals with their respective audiences, at scale. To date, CrowdRiff has processed over 500 million images, and the company currently works with over 500 leading travel and tourism brands globally. CrowdRiff customers include Destination BC, the Royal Ontario Museum, CityPASS and the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions.
About the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development
The mission of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development is to motivate travel to and within Tennessee by inspiring enjoyment, creating memories, producing a desire to return and establishing key long-term relationships that result in visitors becoming residents. In 2017, Tennessee’s tourism industry generated $19.3 billion annually in economic impact, more than $1.7 billion in state and local sales tax revenue and more than 176,500 tourism-related jobs. The promise of Tennessee—the home of the blues, bluegrass, country, gospel, soul, rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll—is to be the global music destination of choice. To deliver an unparalleled experience of beauty, history and family adventure, infused with music that creates a vacation that is “The Soundtrack of America. Made in Tennessee.”
For additional information and media interviews, contact:
Erica Salvalaggio
Eighty-Eight
Account Executive [email protected] +1 (416) 944-2722
