County's tourism website getting an upgrade with AI tools

With the help of artificial intelligence, the Burke County Tourism Development Authority’s website is getting a new look and some handy tools.

People may have noticed that the www.discoverburkecounty.com website looks a little different — they would be correct. The tourism staff has been working behind the scenes with new software and AI to improve their website.

Burke County Tourism’s Katherine Christie of Marketing and Sales joined the Burke River Trail Association for its first installment of enrichment evenings.

From all walks of the county, a crowd of trail and community enthusiasts came together on Wednesday evening, Aug. 14, at Fonta Flora Brewery in Morganton to learn about tourism. Rhodhiss, Valdese, Morganton, and Drexel — all were involved with the BRTA in some shape or form.

BRTA Director Beth Heile has begun a series of enrichment evenings with trail-oriented educational topics. For this particular evening, speaker Christie talked about Burke’s tourism and introduced exciting upcoming projects.

As part of her Travel Marketing Professional certification through the Southeast Tourism Society’s Marketing College, she presented what the tourism staff has accomplished as a Destination Marketing Organization.

“It’s because of organizations like yours and people like Beth, we have things to talk about and share/promote in Burke County,” Christie said at the beginning of the presentation.

Editor's note: Part of the presentation has previously been reported by The Paper. For statistics about tourism in Burke County, read The Paper’s Aug. 17 edition.

BEHIND THE SCENES WORK

With the improved website, there is a new map where tourists can scroll through the Burke and neighboring areas that display trails, parks, restaurants, hotels, and shopping areas. The map provides a smoother experience to craft their itineraries.

For their events page, they have upgraded their calendars with a new software, ITIDIGITAL, that automatically uploads events from selected Facebook pages and websites that the staff can approve or deny.

Using a service called Google API, when a business changes its hours or phone number, the listing on the tourism website will change with it. It will also pull the most liked photos from businesses on Google that can be included on the tourism website.

These new efforts save countless time and energy for the staff, Christie said.

IN THE WORKS

Utilizing AI, there will be a tourism-based app and an online itinerary-builder chat tool coming shortly.

The tourism app will use the data package Placer.AI, which collects foot traffic data from tourists’ mobile devices such as:

• How long the person stayed at the location
• Where they are coming from before visiting a location
• Where they're going
• How much money they are likely to spend based on their zip code

With this data, the tourism office can better strategize and work with businesses in their marketing efforts.

The staff is also beta-testing an AI chatbot that will build a specialized itinerary for tourists. Whether they are interested in art, history, or a place to hike, the chatbot will suggest places and things to do in Burke County.

Related to data, Christie announced that she is talking with the data science program at North Carolina School of Science and Math (NCSSM) about having students analyze data generated from surveys about Burke trails.

“It’s an idea that we’ve had for years; it’s just finding the people who have the mind for that kind of thing who love extrapolating data and who have a lot of free time. It’s hard,” Christie said with a chuckle.

The Burke County Visitors Center is at 140 N. Sterling St. and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. You can reach the center by calling 828-433-6793.