Visualizing the Impact of Travel
Telling a story through data requires a transformation.
The U.S. Travel Association (USTA) sought to depict the benefits of travel spending in a clear and digestible format—despite only having access to bulky economic data and complicated policy narratives.
Explaining—let alone illustrating—how the travel industry benefits employment and the U.S. economy is no easy task. There are multiple layers of data to uncover. Some aspects are easy to understand, like purchasing a plane ticket—while others are more nuanced, like how that purchase impacts the employees of the flight’s food distributor.
Adfero built an online data visualization tool to showcase travel as a key catalyst for achieving economic and employment growth. To further convey USTA’s message, the visualization also highlights the positive impact of pro-travel policies for the economy.
The completed tool brings to life a combination of key messages and expansive research. Through an interactive and engaging scale, users adjust travel spending and simultaneously see the induced effect on specific industries, job sets and the economy. Users learn about travel policies and their implications on the larger industry if they were to be reduced or eliminated altogether.
From a developer’s standpoint, the tool is user-friendly, easy to update and scalable for future USTA projects. As numbers change year-over-year, data can be updated without having to deploy a new development or creative asset.
By making complicated data easily accessible and understandable, Adfero showcased the impacts of the travel industry in a way that earned bipartisan support for USTA’s policy goals.