Where We Have Been
The MINT+ transformation has launched! Ease of reporting, more meetings data, and reliable universal market segmentation have been implemented, while a suggestive recommendation feature is on the way later this year.
Destinations International shepherded the industry’s proprietary business development tool for over 100 years. From its beginning, when convention secretaries placed blue slips sharing their event bookings in a cardboard box, industry sales leaders intuitively knew the enhanced power of collaboration. MINT+ stood the test of time, growing from Excel spreadsheets to internet- and cloud-based repositories for searching and querying, and destinations have long relied on this powerful co-op for increased account knowledge and prospecting.
Take us then to March 2019, when Destinations International enlisted JLL to conduct a wide-ranging subscriber survey to determine what was needed for the next generation of MINT+. Enhancements seen as vital to the ongoing value of the database were identified by subscribers as:
- Lessen reliance on subscribers to report data
- Increase reporting and participation
- Build universal confidence in its accuracy
- Utilize artificial intelligence to identify meetings of interest
“Destinations International is about serving our members first and foremost,” said Don Welsh, President and CEO of Destinations International. “We heard loud and clear from our members that they wanted current and accurate data in order to prospect future meetings. This new product is the future of the meetings and events industry, and we are thrilled to partner with Simpleview, one of the travel and tourism industry’s technology and data leaders.”
Where We Are Going
In January 2020, again relying on partnership and collaboration as a cornerstone of success, Destinations International turned to their trusted technology partner Simpleview to become the exclusive licensee for MINT+ product management and development.
Simpleview subsequently made significant investments in the product’s infrastructure to begin to provide solutions to the most prevalent pain points for MINT+ subscribers.
Automated Reporting: MINT+ All-In
Gaining the commitment of all MINT+ subscribers to be ALL-IN was the critical next step. This vote of confidence in the value of collaboration over competition cemented the way forward for our industry database.
With the start of automated reporting, we have eliminated the reliance on MINT+ subscribers to report data and, at the same time, increased reporting and participation across the board. The momentum is taking hold as we are currently seeing an increase of 130+ new to MINT+ meeting profiles and over 1,500+ meeting occurrences (new bookings and histories) being added to existing meeting profiles each week.
This adds up to making MINT+ compliance seamless for DMOs while providing more robust and complete meeting profiles from which to build account knowledge for direct outreach and a larger pool of profiles to pull from in query building.
Universal Market Segmentation
With MINT+ All-In and automated reporting, there is no longer a reliance on DMOs to assign the appropriate market segment. Instead, the best practices and the universal industry standardization of two classification systems will be applied to all organizations in MINT+.
Helping to build universal confidence in its accuracy, standardized market segmentation is a central component in the system that makes all the meetings data more searchable and thus more useful to users in both their search and query.
