West Midlands: Culture & Tourism Connected
Digital Transformation | Content & Distribution
West Midlands, 2020-present
Ahead of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, the West Midlands had an opportunity to showcase its cultural offer to audiences on an unprecedented scale. But information about events, venues and experiences was fragmented across multiple destination and cultural websites. This made regional collaboration difficult and meant duplicated effort for organisations supplying content.
Working with West Midlands Growth Company, we created Culture and Tourism Connected: a shared digital platform, powered by CultureHosts, that allows destinations and cultural organisations across the West Midlands to contribute, manage and distribute content through a connected regional network.
The West Midlands encompasses major cities, historic towns, cultural institutions and communities, each with its own identity, audiences and website. The challenge wasn’t to replace those individual channels with a single regional one, but to help publishers work better together.
CultureHosts provides a shared data layer beneath the network. Organisations can contribute information about their events and venues once, through any of a dozen websites, while participating destinations decide what is relevant to their audiences and publish it through their own websites and channels. API integrations allow content to flow between CultureHosts and destination websites across the region, while automated feeds from major venues help keep listings current without additional administration.
"This project has helped us take a big step forward in how we share and promote culture across the region." Paul Marshall, Digital Marketing Manager (WMGC)
Infrastructure for collaboration
Culture and Tourism Connected changes the way destinations collaborate. Instead of organisations repeatedly submitting the same information to different websites, information can be managed at source and distributed across the network. Publishers retain control over what appears on their own channels, while gaining access to a much richer pool of regional content. Smaller organisations and community-led experiences can sit within the same connected ecosystem as major festivals, attractions and cultural institutions, helping audiences discover more of what makes individual places distinctive.
An evolving platform
The platform was designed as long-term infrastructure rather than a one-off response to a major event. Today, hundreds of organisations contribute to a shared regional dataset containing thousands of events and hundreds of venues, distributed through a growing network of destination channels. While Birmingham 2022 has come and gone, Culture & Tourism Connected remains as part of its legacy.
Making discovery easier
CultureHosts’ Discovery Panels also make it possible to extend the network without requiring a major new website integration each time. Partners can create curated windows onto shared content for a destination, neighbourhood, campaign or community while the underlying information remains maintained centrally.
From discovery to distribution
And the same connected model provides a foundation for the next stage: moving beyond discovering experiences towards booking and distributing them. Working with West Midlands Growth Company, we are now building on the established infrastructure to explore connected visitor-experience sales and new routes to market across the region.
Connect your destination
Destinations shouldn't have to operate in isolation. CultureHosts creates shared infrastructure that allows destinations, cultural organisations and communities to manage information efficiently, collaborate across boundaries and connect audiences with more of what a place has to offer.
Get in touch
If you’re interested in working with us, have questions about the platform, or want to learn more, we’d love to hear from you