CenTRO, Center for Tourism Research and Outreach

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CenTRO
University of Maine
5782 Winslow Hall
Orono, ME 04469-5782

ph: 207-581-3102
fax: 207-581-4278
e-mail: Kimberly.Junkins@umit.maine.edu

MTMPP

(Maine Tourism Marketing Partnership Program)

This project has been withdrawn

Link to survey information and instructions below.

Weekly Contact Counts by Region (as of 09/18/2008)

Aroostook County 41
Downeast & Acadia 78
Maine Beaches 176
Maine Highlands 75
Maine Lakes & Mountains 29
Maine Midcoast 42
Portland and Casco Bay 362

Winner of the L.L. Bean gift certificate, randomly selected from online participants.

Project Flow Chart
(contingent on funding)

Project Flow Chart

CenTRO MTMPP Program

Grounded in the State Government’s mandate for achieving accountability in each of its programs and spelled out in the MTMPP guidelines issued by the Maine Office of Tourism, the objective of this program is to document the value of the major projects that are funded by the MTMPP grants across Maine tourism regions. This is expressed as a return on investment (ROI).
The major projects and programs funded by MTMPP grants and evaluated by this project include programs commonly funded by MTMPP grants across the majority of regions. These include advertising/brochures/travel guides, trade show attendance and exposure to regional web sites.
MTMPP consists of two phases:

Phase I – Recruiting Survey

This is a short questionnaire that can be linked to each region’s website, administered at trade shows or over the telephone. It is designed to capture contact information from contacts seeking fulfillment pieces either by web site or over the telephone. Ultimately, it is designed to build a sample for Phase II, a future conversion study survey.
(Online Questionnaire Only) A question containing a graphic of regional print advertising will capture a web site visitor’s ability to identify advertisements he/she recalls viewing.
Supported by the promotion codes unique to each region that firmly identify contacts exposed to specific regional print advertising.

Each code consists of:

The first group of letters corresponds to name of the region – for example DA – Downeast & Acadia;
The second group of letters corresponds to the name of the media outlet – for example MIY – Maine Invites You;
The third group of letters corresponds to the project type – for example PA – print advertisement;
The fourth group of letters and numbers corresponds to the time – for example Spring – Summer 2007.

The complete unique code is DA-MIY-PA-S07. Recovering this code from every potential future traveler upon their contact will be essential for the success of the tracking project. This code along with other information collected from a prospective visitor will be later shared with CenTRO.

Asks questions about previous visits to the region to aid in determining net conversion in Phase II, the future conversion study.
Phase I data collection and storage of prospective respondents for Phase II will be the exclusive responsibility of CenTRO.

Phase II – Follow Up Surveys

Fielded by Davidson-Peterson Associates in conjunction with their visitor tracking research, the questionnaire for Maine’s visitor tracking has been modified to capture key data for use in MTMPP evaluation. See the DPA visitor tracking questionnaire
The research design features a controlled experiment involving a test panel (Conversion Study among Respondents Recruited in Phase I) and a control panel (Recruited from a commercial e-mail panel representing the general population of the Maine tourism drive market).
Extensive on-line survey fielded among samples from both panels using a common questionnaire. To maintain comparability, DPA will collect the data for both panels using an identical data collection process and questionnaire. See the DPA visitor tracking questionnaire
Final net impact (the basis for calculating the return on investment - ROI) will be measured by comparing the general population panel responses against Conversion Study responses. In other words, comparison of responses of those that may not have had media exposure with responses of those that were exposed to website and/or print advertisements and trade show contact.
Currently 5 regions are participating via a linkage from their web sites to the online recruiting questionnaire. These are Aroostook County, Downeast and Acadia, Maine Beaches, the Maine Highlands, and Maine Lakes and Mountains. Of course the 3 remaining regions are welcome to join these regions and place a link on their web pages. Given the late date, though, their first opportunity for data collection and a report would probably come with next year’s May/June data collection cycle.

Timeline:

Data collection for the control condition is currently underway as a set of questions that have been “piggybacked” on Davidson-Peterson’s visitor tracking questionnaire.
The test condition (conversion studies) will also be fielded by Davidson – Peterson to start in late October. CenTRO will continue to collect contact information for that survey until the end of September.

MTMPP Grant Evaluation Proposal

MTMPP Presentation

Sample Recruiting Questionnaire

Draft Primary Data Collection Instrument

Those regions that handle fulfillment requests by phone should fill in the hard copy of the survey (link below) with the customer on the phone.