How Visit York County Turns Every Tournament Weekend into a Destination Experience

Q4: How does Compass’ AI chat functionality play into that too?

We were super interested to see how it would do. Personally I don't really use AI that much in my own internal work, but a lot of these travelers do. Compass will get questions from people at the event or from people a week or two in advance when they're trying to prep their trip and decide where to stay and what to do.

For a lot of these teams, this is their vacation. They can't afford vacations outside of this because they're traveling seven, eight months of the year. Giving them options to spend an afternoon doing something outside of just their sport really helps us in how we sell to event organizers. "Hey, you had 150 teams, but you could have done more in our county”. Now you have this tool to help promote the area. You can tell families they can get an afternoon at Carowinds, a cheaper hotel stay versus the beach, a great atmosphere and vacation-like experience. Compass does a really good job of bridging the gap from sports and events tourism to general tourism.

Q5: You mentioned embedding Compass into Big Shots' website. How did that come together and what kind of engagement have you seen?   

In the past we would do a mass email blast when a team registered, with a link to our website. That did okay, but there's no real way to track it, and you have to stay on top of event organizers to make sure it goes out. We've worked it into our contracts, but it's still a lot of people to cross through to get your mission accomplished.

With Compass embedded directly on the event website, it's already there in front of them at the source of where they're going to be. We still work on email blasts and social posts, but it all falls back into the same ecosystem through the organizer's website. It's a funnel that feeds itself.

From the organizers themselves, they love it. A lot of these sites, SportsEngine, basic WordPress pages, they're not the best. For some with better websites, this becomes a nice little asset. For others, it changes the whole scope of their website. What used to be a confusing PDF page where people couldn't figure out how to book a hotel - which just pushed them to Expedia or Google - is now the experiences in York County, hotel booking, and the AI chat all living on one page. We've had people asking about hotels and things to do weeks in advance. The organizers love it because it's less they have to deal with at event time, and we get more value out of every resource we put into bringing events here.

Q6: Who actually handles the QR codes and signage on-site, and what does the engagement look like in person?

I had the same question when I first started going down this rabbit hole. Having come from the event organizer side working for Big Shots, I knew that if you offer to split the cost of wristbands or tablecloths, they're going to use those things anyway. They need tablecloths to cover score tables, banners hanging from the rafters, signage at the entrance. They already have that stuff up. We just help rebrand and get them new ones, and they keep it all. And every time they come back, they're bringing it because that's all they have.

The bonus is those materials travel with the organizer. We've had QR codes show up at facilities that aren't even in Rock Hill. We're getting marketing in places we didn't even plan for. Our logos and co-branding are showing up at other venues, hopefully putting York County in someone's mind for a future event.

For on-site engagement, we'll be there for an hour or two - send interns and ourselves out on the floor rather than sitting at a table hoping somebody stops. We hand out deals and discount cards, ask people to try the chat bot. In about an hour you'll get 150 people who are like "this is really cool." And once you plant that seed with someone who comes back five, six, seven times a year, they already know - "I can ask this bot for what I need."

Q7: What has driven the most value out of everything you've implemented through Playeasy?

It's close now because Compass is up there being newer for us. The recent updates have been fantastic, the way the UI looks and how it links into our site, our blog posts, our event pages. But I'd probably say Experiences first, just because of the reasoning it gives us to buy and split costs for venue upfits, wristbands, tablecloths - things we otherwise couldn't justify on our own.

Compass tied in with that is a great addition because we don't have to be on-site for every event. We don't have to pay a staff member to work a game. For events where you have great relationships and things are already figured out, everybody wins. I'd call it a tie, but Experiences has driven the most value having used it for the past couple of years, with Compass being a close second.

Q8: Do you bring Playeasy into your pitch when you're recruiting event organizers to come to Rock Hill?

Every time. Playeasy is pretty well known at trade shows now, and it's even easier when a prospect already has an account because everything links seamlessly. It works even better when we can embed Compass in their website if they're already a member.

The angle is simple: if you come host with us, your life is easier than if you went somewhere else. We have the external factors - less traffic, close to the airport, cheaper hotels - but we also have this component where we can say "when you come host here, you're the only thing in town, we're going to take care of you, and here are tools you might not have anywhere else." Combined with our facilities and partnerships, that really sets the standard above a lot of other destinations in our conversations.

Q9: When you zoom out, how do you think the role of a destination website is changing as more engagement happens on partner sites and at events?

Internally, when we calculate how to justify accommodations tax spend on our website, this helps us extend into other websites, but it's still our website technically. We're still tracking clicks, views, and engagement time through the platform, and we should be including that in our own reporting.

The bigger challenge - and I think it's across every destination - is how do you bridge your marketing department, which is focused on local businesses and local events, with your sales team that's bringing in groups from outside the area? You still need that local base to support you. This tool helps bridge that gap. If it's July and someone's looking for ice cream and we just posted a blog about the top five ice cream spots in York County, that content is already in Compass. The marketing team doesn't have to worry about how to get it in front of new tourists, and it still supports the local audience that already engages with that content.

The reporting side is where destinations are going to have to evolve. Counting interactions from a Big Shots website widget the same way you count traffic to your own site, that's just different. But engaging visitors at the actual point of contact, where they register and make decisions, I think that's going to be a big step for a lot of destinations.

Q10: What advice would you give to a destination just getting started with Experiences or Compass, where do they focus first?

I'd probably focus on Compass first, just because even if you're not a big sports tourism destination, you can still use it. If you're more focused on meetings and business sales, most CRMs don't have an AI function. Having that AI function integrated with your marketing team's blog posts is a great place to start.

If you're more sports tourism focused, Experiences alongside it makes a lot of sense. The event page microsite is fantastic for putting together a complete digital visitor information piece. That said, it's not exclusive to sports. We had a South Carolina Law Enforcement state meeting use an event page as their full website. We branded it how they needed, it looked way better than just an Eventbrite page, and they linked out to ticketing from there.

The big thing with Compass is it's as good as you make it. For us, the Simpleview sync lets us pull in information that we haven't manually inputted into Playeasy - things to do, attractions, addresses, hours, whether a place is pet friendly. In the beginning we entered all of that manually. That integration removes a huge amount of setup time and lets your other departments benefit without the sales team doing everything themselves. If you have Simpleview, that alone makes it worth it.

Q10: Any final thoughts for destinations?

If you haven't looked at the Playeasy platform in three or four years because you remember it as just a lead generation marketplace, look again. The platform has completely changed. Over the last year and a half, two years, the AI functionality has grown a ton in appearance and capability.

The real proof for us is that we now have a Director of Destination Services whose job is primarily built around servicing our events through this platform. Before, that position wouldn't have existed. There wasn't enough we could do to justify a full salary around event servicing beyond putting tables out. This platform created the value to support that role.

Not every destination needs to buy the whole thing. There are pieces of this that can still enhance your visitor experience without a full commitment. But every destination is figuring out how to use AI right now. If your website doesn't have that capability, Compass gives it to you seamlessly. Especially with Simpleview. Any visitor on your website, local, tourist, anyone from anywhere, can benefit from that AI experience. If you haven't taken a second look, now is the time.