Blog

The Travel and Tourism Research Association had a number of presenters including Bill Seigel from Longwoods. All topics were focused on the future or Tourism; how is it changing, what role does research play and what's next? Burrell demonstrated how data will be used by competitive organizations going forward using some case studies. (http://www.slideshare.net/richardaburrell). 

We recently finished delivering performance for last year. A newer element in that process was Benchmarking our clients against the industry on several criteria. To see our clients consistently outperform the industry was delightful. And we had some conclusions about what some are doing very well. Interestingly, it's what we didn't find that we believe may be useful to you. So, when we think of the people that are doing it really well, getting the most tourism business for their budget, these are the things they don't do. 

Not much. Nothing has changed in Washington. It's the same faces for the next two years. Fortunately Obama has completely changed his position on tourism from denouncing meetings to realizing tourism is the only government expenditure that generates taxes other than education. That statement destroyed meetings across the U. S. Now, he's in favor of tourism. What does that mean for your tourism business? Not much. 

The fires in Colorado provide stark learning opportunities for Tourism marketing. We often talk about the mix of Audience and Message. Getting the right message in front of the right Audience is critical. Using Advertising to reach the Audience is a well-known method to do that for most destination marketing professionals. Public Relations ("PR") efforts are less well-known. And they're devotion of budget varies more widely than advertising. As budgets go from $40,000 to $4mm PR, as a percentage of budget, swings from 0% to 10%.