Did you know that just 14 percent of Snapchat users are over 35 years old, where as half of Facebook users are over 35? If you asked what Snapchat is, then I guess you must be nearly as old as I am. The thing is that in tourism the digital world is where everything is happening. It’s been that way for a while and digital, particularly mobile devices, are leading the way. Google has seen a 50 percent increase in travel-related searches over the past year on smartphones — not tablets and laptops, but smartphones.
The younger travelers, millennials and centennials are committed to their phones and their influence on old travelers is very strong. Parents and grandparents are going to the youngsters for advice and research. These groups also love images and video. Instagram is the favorite social media channel for 33 percent of U.S. teenagers compared with only 14 percent for Facebook. YouTube reaches more people between the ages of 18 to 49 than any network TV or cable provider. YouTube reports that interest in travel-related video is up 60 percent in the last couple of years.
What does this mean for tourism?……
As you know, there are moves to de-fund Visit Florida. Such and action would cause irreparable damage to Florida’s tourism industry. If you would like to help, there are many ways you can influence the legislatures decision.
These include contacting your local legislators, contacting members of the committee involved in funding, writing to local news outlets, posting on social media and generally encouraging your contacts to support the action.
Below are links that will help.
As we enter this year’s legislative session, we are fortunate to have the support of Governor Scott and other key leaders. But each and every one of us in the industry needs to advocate for support of the state’s top tax revenue and jobs producer. Here’s how: View and download the slides that Roger Dow, head of U.S. Travel, presented to the Senate Appropriations Committee last week that shows what can happen if public funding for tourism marketing is taken away.
Email your local elected officials emphasizing the importance of continued funding for VISIT FLORIDA and support of the tourism industry. Contact information for your local elected officials can be found at TourismWorksForFlorida.org.
Share your voice as a participant in Tourism Day. Sign up here.
Some time ago, I wrote a blog about how I learned to love tourists called, “I’m not a Grockle, I live here.” (You can find it at http://ow.ly/Ps7k308ciuD, if only to find out what a “Grockle” is!). Having grown up in a small, historic country frequently visited by camera-wielding tourists, you quickly learned to embrace, rather than fight, human curiosity.
One of the major factors affecting world tourism in the coming years will be what’s termed “over-tourism.” We’ve seen the 300,000 residents of Iceland struggling with 3 million tourists a year. It’s almost impossible to buy a home in Venice and the city has almost become a tourist theme park. Machu Picchu, the Inca city situated 8,000 feet up in the Peruvian Andes, has been forced to restrict tourist numbers at certain times of the year to avoid destroying the world heritage site.
These are extreme examples, but there is a need to manage tourism. It’s a process called Sustainable Tourism, which aims to ensure that development is a positive experience for locals and tourists while helping to generate future employment and……..
When we think tourism here on the northern Gulf Coast, we automatically default to sugar white sand and emerald green water. Why wouldn’t we? We have some of the best beaches in the world. The trouble is the tourists only tend to see the part of our counties that are within two miles of the beach. The effects of tourism spread far inland, though, as many of us involved in the tourism industry live away from the beach and consequently spend income within inland communities. Incidentally, that’s another benefit of tourism that’s not often recognized.
Last year we went on a short road trip to Georgia, to an area north of Atlanta. I wrote about the trip on my blog – http://ow.ly/KgHL3083iem. We took the back roads avoiding as many towns as we could. It was here that what’s termed agritourism was evident. What may not be obvious is that tourists travel for many reasons, and we’ll cover some of these in the future – cultural tourism, ecotourism, heritage, historical and medical tourism to name a few.
There is a current movement to preserve the rural way of life in Florida. Despite the impression that the Sunshine State is the theme park and beach capital of the world, agriculture is vital to Florida. Farm cash receipts from marketing Florida agricultural products in 2012 amounted to $8.22 billion.
Florida has a vibrant agritourism business (http://visitor.visitfloridafarms.com) as does Georgia (http://georgia-agritourism.org), which offer everything from pick-your-own to farm-stays. Many farms we passed in Georgia had signs offering “on farm accommodation.” There also are farm visitor centers, many boasting restaurants, souvenir stores and produce outlets – all activities that generate new income for the rural communities.
Do we promote agritourism here in Northwest Florida? Well, not really.See the rest of the article HERE.
This article was published in the Northwest Florida Daily News on Sunday January 14, 2017.
When I was 16, one of my greatest goals was to learn to drive. I bought an old car to do up when I was 15 and had my first driving lesson the day I became legally eligible. My friends did the same. During my late-teens and twenties (in the UK), my friends and I thought nothing of driving all over Europe for our vacations. Evidently it was the same here in the United States, and that had a particular effect on the Emerald Coast tourism business.
Well over 90 percent of Emerald Coast leisure visitors drive to our piece of paradise, with many loading up the car and driving 10 or 15 hours to visit. It’s been that way for 40 years.
Like everything else in tourism, things are changing. My children live in New Zealand – one is 28, the other 24 – and neither can drive or have any wish to learn. The same thing is happening in the U.S. The Federal Highway Administration reports that every demographic is losing interest in driving. Between 2011 and 2014, two particular age groups – 16-year-olds and those in the 20-24 range – stopped getting driver’s licenses. For 17-year-olds, the percentage of licensed individuals fell from 45 percent to 44.9 percent. Similar reductions happened across all age groups.
I’m not one for making resolutions, mostly because I change my mind so much! If you want to change something, better to just to get on with it than wait for some arbitrary date to start. That’s my excuse anyway. Similarly, looking backwards doesn’t help because we can’t change what has past – although as numerous people (apparently) are quoted as saying – if you don’t remember past mistakes, you’re doomed to repeat them!
So, in the interests of progress, let’s look forward.
I’ve read two articles over the end of the year break that I felt were right on point. I’ve attached links to these so you can read them yourself.
The first was by anti-aging & sports medicine pioneer, and futurist, Dr Robert Goldman (http://ow.ly/Akd9307C9Bt). Dr Goldman pointed out some of the changes that society will be subjected to over the next few years. What is most striking is the speed at which these changes will take place. I remember talking to a scientist with British Telcom back in the early ‘90s who said that they knew absolutely what developments would arrive within 5 years; they had a pretty good idea what would happen in the next 10 years but beyond that they were ‘wishing and hoping’! as Dr Goldman suggests we are now in the exponential age, where changes occur at an ever increasing rate. In many cases these changes happen faster than most businesses can adapt. If you read the article you’ll see that many developments will directly affect the Travel and Tourism Industry.
The second piece was by Christopher Elliott in the Washington Post (http://ow.ly/Hrvl307C9Ob). Chris is suggesting that 2017 is the year many people, especially Americans, won’t be traveling on vacation. He cites many reasons and offers suggestions of how as a tourist you can benefit (please go and read it!) but for those of us in the industry there are three main takeaways. That tourist will be looking for alternative accommodations, authenticity and satisfying their needs for instant gratification.
I’ve talked to many travel and tourism professionals over the past year and we’ve discussed the inevitable changes that are happening and I can’t think of anyone who has disagreed. After all, the signs are really clear – very ‘in your face’ as it were. However, many are not willing to accept the speed of changes.
Take ‘alternative accommodation’ – Airbnb in particular. Home sharing has expanded incredibly rapidly. Airbnb are now the largest accommodation provider in the world with over 2.5million homes (incidentally, they own no hotel rooms!) yet most of the vacation rental companies here in Northwest Florida’s Northern Gulf Coast seem to think think they are not a serious threat to their business model.
The past year the 1.5 million guest arrivals to Florida via Airbnb represent 114 percent year-over-year growth. This comes as Floridians increasingly embrace the home sharing platform as an opportunity to earn supplemental income and make ends meet. The Airbnb Florida host community grew 74 percent in 2016 to a total of 32,000 hosts.
Yes, the local industry says, but it’s in cities, not here.
This is the total supplemental income earned by Airbnb hosts in our local counties:
Bay County $4.9 million
Walton County $3.3 million
Okaloosa County $2.9 million
Escambia County $1.8 million
Santa Rosa County $683,000
That’s a total of nearly $13.6 million. True, it’s only 10% of the income from Miami-Dade alone, but its still remarkably significant.
People love the idea of either staying with a local host, or staying in the home of a host which they perceive differently than the relatively anonymous experience of a cookie cutter condo or a ‘standard’ hotel room.
This contributes to the ‘authenticity experience’ that comes from home sharing, boutique hotels and the like.
Chis Elliott also refers to ‘Instant Gratification’. I know I’m always talking about the attitudes of Millennials and younger Boomers but they do have have a seemingly out of proportion effect on our industry. Their behavior appears to affect the other sectors of our audience too. The ubiquity of smartphones and the ability to access information from wherever you are, makes the almost impulse decision to book a vacation all too easy.
You’ve bought things on Amazon. How many times have you been tempted by the ‘people who bought this also bought this’ suggestion?
Think what will happen when someone suggest “How about we go to The Gulf of Mexico next weekend?”. You look at your phone and up pops the local CVB websites – you see what events are happening, and guess what? You can book the Airbnb accommodation right there, and the concert tickets, and the Uber from the airport. Of course there was link to book flights too but you’ll probably want to do that with the airline because you get your miles there – and suddenly Delta Air Lines are offering 1 mile for every $1 you spend with Airbnb if booked through them – oh, and Uber credits too.
We have a change to the whole vacation booking experience, which is not taking 5 or 10 years to develop but is happening as we speak.
Put a note in your calendar to contact me at the end of 2017 and tell me if there have been no changes to your tourism business during the year. To be frank, I don’t think you’d be able to do that by June!
Whatever happens is going to be exciting. The evolution of the world’s biggest industry has always been fascinating and the near future won’t disappoint I’m sure.
Please follow the Owen Organization blog on www.owenorganization.com, sign up for the newsletter and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OwenOrganization. Lastly, check out the weekly ‘Talking Tourism’ column in the Northwest Florida Daily News every Sunday.
An old joke in the ‘80s and ‘90s was “ I bought a video recorder that was ‘so simple, a 5 year-old could program it’. I ended up having to get my 5 year-old to program it as I couldn’t’.”
That five year old is now likely a Millennial generation adult and is having a major disruptive effect on the whole of the tourism industry.
The Millennial generation now comprises around 25% of the US population according to the US Census Bureau and they travel a great deal. PhoCusWright reports that 71% take at least one trip of three nights or less, 42% travel internationally (compared with 28% of older travelers), and they are twice as likely as older generations to take longer trips of 14 nights or more.
The Millennial generation also travel differently than previous generations in that they don’t always stay in hotels. They stay with friends and they use services like Airbnb. They don’t always use taxis, car services or rental cars – they use Uber and Lyft.
Unlike previous generations, they may take more trips but spend less. They are more connected, with 90% owning a smart phone – compared to 57% of older travelers – which 66% use to shop or buy travel. They use a wide variety of sources for their research and booking from OTAs, review sites like TripAdvisor and of course peer advice shared through a whole raft of social networking.
According to Samantha Worgull of ‘Hotel News Now’ and PhoCusWright, Millennials tend to book at the last minute with 23% booking less than one week before departure.
They seek experiences and want to share those with their peers and families through social networks. Experience is the whole raison d’etre for their traveling. No matter if this foodie, eco-tourism, adventure or pure excitement. The simple fact is that this group want to do more than lie on a beach.
To return to the old joke about video recorders, those same adults who sought advice from their children are now Boomers and are again seeking advice from their Millennial offspring. They want to where and how to buy their travel. They want reassurance that Airbnb or Uber are safe.
Marcello Gasdia, senior analyst of consumer research at PhoCusWright said during a recent conference “Millennials have been the trend setters, they are the ambassadors of technology.”
So, this is the disruptive influence the Millennial generation is having on the whole tourism industry:
They book late
They look for value
They seek experiences
They share their trips with others
They research intensively
They influence older travelers
How does this affect the traditional providers of tourism products?
For airlines and hotels the loyalty of the Millennial traveler cannot be guaranteed. Many fewer are members of loyalty programs, 22% compared with 41% of older travelers. The inference is that they may not trust the advertising and promotion of established companies blindly. They are more likely to take advice from friends and independent reviews, and change their booking habits accordingly.
Travel agents as we knew them are largely a thing of the past, particularly in the USA. In Europe and Canada the situation is slightly different but certainly the old style travel agent is dead. In their continuing quest for value, On-Line Travel Agents (OTAs like Expedia) are well in the mix to seek bargains and value. Anything that is not an ‘experience’ like a conventional hotel room or condo becomes a commodity, to be booked wherever the best deal can be found – preferably at the last moment.
The last minute tourist is still looking for the destination experience, the tour (hopefully not conventional but personally led by a local!) or activity will probably be left until arrival when the weather and local area has been checked out. Tour and activity booking specialist TripShock! confirm that most of their bookings are made after a guest arrives in the destination. Where does the Millennial tourist find the information? Again, peer advice or advice of a local. Local tourist boards (CVBs, Chambers of Commerce and similar organizations) are seemingly trustworthy sources, particularly in areas where the likes of TripAdvisor or Expedia do not have much content (Virtually everywhere except places like Orlando, New York or Las Vegas!).
The problem with local tourist organizations is that on the whole they further refer visitors to individual tour providers for follow up. Given the attention span of website visitors, they want to get advice and book there an then, not have to make lists and do even more research.
Experience from tourist organizations in New Orleans shows that if they offer advice and reviews and then enable on-site, immediate booking it results in more bookings for local businesses, happy tourists and a bonus of commission payments to the tourist board.
Disruption is a current buzz-word, but the Millennial generation has disrupted life in the tourism industry worldwide. Not only by their different travel habits and use of technology; their search for ‘experience’ and value, but also their influence on the other generations of traveler. Particularly the Boomer generation. The important factor with this group is that they have more opportunity to travel and have a higher disposable income. They also learn fast when it comes to technology.
The Boomers also learnt, back in the day, to listen to their offspring……
I recently celebrated yet another birthday. They appear to come alarmingly more frequent. As a kid I used to count the birthday cards but now count, with amazement, the number of good wishes I receive via social media. The greetings come from the world over as my friends and family get spread further and further.
In the old days of course, one had to make a great effort of keeping a birthday book, buying a card, the correct value in stamps and remembering to put the card in the mail. These days, thanks to technology, we’re reminded automatically and all it requires is to post ‘Happy Birthday’ and to add an emoji or an imaginative sticker, gif or what have you.
That’s not to deride the process as I for one really (no, honestly, REALLY) like to wish my friends the best on their birthdays and appreciate being able to do so easily and across the world. The technology is a huge help to my memory and I love (thank you Mr Zuckerberg) being able to maintain contact with contacts from school, various workplaces as well as family, wherever they may be.
However I digress from what I intended to write.
I also received messages from a number of businesses that want my business. Starbucks for example. I’m a gift card spending , app using, loyalty card carrying Starbucks follower and of course they have my birthdate. So I get the message offering a free coffee. I know that this is an automatic system that just pings off the email, and I know that the free coffee costs virtually nothing. I also recognize that I probably won’t even claim my gift. But it makes me feel good none the less. My ego thinks they really care, even if my marketing brain knows different.
So, tourism people, when that client registered on your website did you collect the birthday information? More to the point, when that traveler made a booking six months out from their travel date did you contact them during those months other than to send them a balance invoice?
Back in the 70s and 80s the travel agency I worked in used to make a calendar entry for all their clients bookings and regularly sent out postcards to the clients saying ‘only two months to your trip’, or ‘are you packing yet?’. We even considered sending postcards from their destination to keep the excitement going. It was a chore, delegated to the office junior, but mighty effective. We also sent out cards after the vacation asking how the trip had been, and later reminding them that as six months had past, they needed another break! The customers loved it and kept coming back.
These days all that information is easy to collect automatically (no need for the office junior!) and scheduling the emails, FB messages etc., requires little or no work. Cheap too – no postcards, stamps, addresses to look up or trips to the mail.
My free birthday gift to all of you in travel and tourism is to make use of your databases. Send out messages reminding people about their forthcoming vacation, thank them for their past trip (no, not the customer satisfaction survey, but a genuine ‘thanks for visiting and we want you back’ message), or even a ‘we’re missing you’ email.
For DMOs, when your collecting likes on Facebook, or addresses in your database, follow up with a message asking if they’ve booked? Send them Holiday Greetings – personalized of course – from The Sunshine State, The Red Fish Coast or wherever you are.
Yes, it’s corny. Yes, the customer knows it’s automatic. But they also, deep inside, appreciate it.
It’s like thanking them for their good review of TripAdvisor. It shows you’re listening and that, behind the technology, you do actually care.
Many people suggest that Sir Winston Churchill said ‘England and America are two countries separated by a common language’. Most sources agree that it was actually George Bernard Shaw who said it first, although Churchill probably either repeated it, or said something similar. Whatever, bringing Sir Winston into the story helps me later in this blog, so stick with me!
The fact that ‘English English’ and ‘US English’ share many common words and phrases that have subtle (and not so subtle) differences in meaning and spelling, should give anyone in the travel, tourism and hospitality industries pause for reflection. If you’re reacting to a guest from somewhere else, then be mighty careful what you say, how you say it, and how it’s interpreted.
There are the obvious differences most of us in these industries know about – elevator/lift, sidewalk/pavement etc., but what about the more subtle variations? To a Brit the floor of a building at street level is referred to as the Ground Floor, to an American – First Floor. Consequently the American’s first floor is the Briton’s second floor and so on. When the Englishman requests a room on the first floor, don’t tell him he can sleep in reception!
Taking a laundry order? To an American they’re pants, but to a Briton they’re trousers. The Britain’s pants are the American’s (under) shorts. Vest? Another mix up. Braces/suspenders – a whole new can of worms.
Even within the USA there’s a cultural and regional mixup between soda/pop, median/neutral ground (the Englishman’s Central Reservation!) and many others.
…and those are just cultural differences between folks who suposedly speak the same language. Differences of which the hospitality or tourism professional needs to be aware. Just imagine what could happen with people who speak totally different languages, or who were taught your common language by a a foreigner, if you get my drift.
Then there are the non-verbal communication issues and the cultural nuances of behavior….
Be careful how you accept a business card given by someone from Japan. Their cultural expectation is that you will receive the card respectfully, study it closely for a few seconds and the either place it in a business card holder or in your wallet. Taking the card and sticking in your pocket, or worse putting on the table without reading it is grossly unacceptable and plain rude.
Personal space? Westerners expects two or three feet around them, but many Asians and Africans are much closer. Many Europeans will kiss on greeting – but be careful as there is a strict code of how many kisses on the cheek you’re entitled to.
Never expose the soles of your feet to a Thai, it’s incredibly disrespectful.
Never sip vodka with a Russian. Vodka should, in Russian culture be ‘downed in one’.
It’s incredibly important that our hospitality and tourism folks are made aware of these cultural nuances if they are ever to encounter a guest from a different country or culture, or indeed if we are going to be tourists elsewhere ourselves.
Even making a assumptions is fraught with danger. Just because someone speaks French doesn’t mean they’re French. A Belgian is not going to be amused to be taken for a Frenchman, any more than Canadians and Americans like being lumped together. Call a Scotsman English (or vice versa) and you’re in for big trouble. Same with Aussies and Kiwis. Oh, and never belittle an Australian sports team – ever!
This whole cultural thing extends to gestures, those little things we do with our hands – thumbs up, OK sign, hang loose and such. Well, although these maybe fine in your culture, they are often incredibly insulting or rude to others. Even the simple ‘come here’ gesture means something REALLY bad in many countries.
It can be in a interesting an often amusing subject, but it stresses that if you’re training hospitality or tourism people they must take cultural differences very seriously. Even if you’re not planning on having a large number of out of area visitors, it takes just one one offended tourists to tell their contacts that ‘we’ behave badly. Even the action of making fun of someone’s accent, or the way they phrase things, indicates an immature grasp of cultural differences.
Now, back to Churchill…..
You’ve seen photos of him doing his V-for Victory two fingered salute, but how many of you (non Britons) have really seen how he did it? First and second finger held up, thumb and remaining fingers curled into the palm and the palm facing the audience.That’s important.
Many non-Britons will indicate ‘I want two of those’ by holding up the same two fingers but with the back of the hand facing towards the audience. A big no-no!
The (probably urban myth) story goes that during the 100 year’s war in the fifteenth century, when the English and the French were constantly at each ether’s throats, there emerged an instrument of mass destruction – the English Long Bowman. So successful were the English Bowmen that at the Battle of Agincourt (1415) the English lost only 400 men compared with 6000 French, despite being outnumbered more than 3 to 1. The French threatened that if they caught an English bowman, they would cut-off the two fingers that they used to draw their bow string. Consequently, it is said, the English bowmen raised a two finger salute in a V sign (not the Churchill version!) to the French showing they still had their fingers.
To this day the British use the V sign in much the same insulting way that Americans use the ‘bird’ single finger! You have been warned…..
If you have any cultural ‘faux pas’ we should be aware of – pass them on.
I read an article recently that prompted me to think about how the purchase of travel, and associated products, has changed over the years. More importantly it made me think about how things have stayed the same.
The article was published by organization Tnooz, which is a global provider of news, analysis, commentary, education, data and business services to the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. A sort of Owen Organization on steroids! It was pointing out how travel marketing has become more frustrating than ever because the cost of acquiring customers in the digital age has become very high. The article can be found here http://ow.ly/swbP304mz1e
Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s I was involved in a company selling long haul travel to people in the United Kingdom. The customers wanted to buy air tickets, accommodation and tours that would allow them to travel to Australia and New Zealand. Naturally this wasn’t an impulse purchase, and certainly in those days, it would be termed ‘a trip of a lifetime’. We found that although the customers would phone our offices and have long, long conversations about their proposed trip, many of them wanted to actually visit us in person. I’m assuming they wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to take their money and disappear into the night! These folks would travel a great distance to see us, often half way across the country. They’d arrive with great folders of information that they had gathered over a period. By the dates of the ads they’d torn out of newspapers, we could tell that they had been collecting info often for some years.
It wasn’t just one or two travelers who behaved like this, it was the majority. I guess that if you’re about to have the ‘trip of a lifetime’ then you would be tempted to take a long time in putting it together. The trouble was, that this was’t in general, a one off trip.These customers were ‘frequent fliers’ with us, although frequent meant once every two or five years.
That didn’t mean that they only travel to our destinations, but went on other excursions in the intervening periods, and presumably they put as much research into those trips as they did with the flights ‘down-under’.
That process all happened in the pre-internet days, when research meant reading magazines and newspaper articles. It required the tearing out and keeping of numerous ads from the travel sections of the national press. Watching every travel documentary they could find was almost compulsory. These customers knew more about ‘our’ destinations than we did.
The internet and the World Wide Web changed all that of course. Instant access to information, price comparison sites, peer reviews and OTAs – on line travel agents, have consigned all that to the dim and distant past. Or has it?
More recently I’ve worked with travel companies and destination marketing organizations who have been grappling with how to best spend their money to acquire customers. A great deal of thought has gone into when and where to place ads. Given the ability to track responses to digital ads and to measure the open rates of newsletters it’s understandable that those in charge of the budgets want to know, definitively, what is working and what isn’t. This is all well and good if we assume that all travel decisions are made on the fly and travelers do the same thing year after year.
Making those assumptions – impulse buys and repeating past decisions – encourages the marketeer to place trackable ads and then cease making ad buys that don’t result in immediate bookings, or at least bookings that can’t be linked to a particular campaign. However we must look at the the way people actually book.
A customer sees a print ad in a glossy magazine that prompts their interest. They ‘file’ that away in their memory either consciously or more likely unconsciously. They don’t remember the phone number in the ad, or the ‘trackable’ URL. While driving they hear a radio ad about the same destination. To be honest it’s unlikely they will stop and write down the phone number or URL and so, that’s just another memory. By some miracle the potential traveler either sees something on-line or maybe even searches for info on their iPad or phone. They may bookmark the info for later or perhaps even respond to the ad for more information. Enter the dreaded cookie that tracks their every on-line move, and suddenly every on-line ad they see is about that particular destination, hotel, airline or cruise. Magic! The DMO, or advertiser now knows everything about them and sends out teasers and newsletters. The success of those original print ads and radio spots is called into question. They did not, as far as the digital marketeer knows, result in a booking so it makes sense to stop that particular channel spend.
Our potential traveler now responds to the email they have received. They may forward the email to a fellow traveler or they may just click on a link. More likely, they’ll just remember the general email rather than the full link to the page they viewed. They’ll then go another device – the work based PC, or a phone or other screen to get more info. Of course there’s no cookie following that move, and they may even be using different email address for each inquiry.
Although as marketeers we may rewarded with the trackable booking, it’s more than likely that the ‘thread’ of the booking is lost numerous times.
Another distraction is the length of time it takes to make a decision. I can’t remember the number of times we’ve seen a destination on a movie or in a magazine and said we must go there – this year’s out of the question because we already have plans but next year’s a possibility or the year after…..
Down here on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico we had the tragedy of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. The resultant exposure that region the received was the silver lining in that particular cloud. BP were forced to spend millions in the following years. CVBs along the coast worked together to promote the area but more importantly the media (bless ’em!) flooded the airwaves with images of our pristine sugar white sand and emerald green waters. Whatever their apocalyptic message was at the time, the names of Destin, Panama City Beach, 30A, and Pensacola became embedded in the psyche of people who had never heard of us before. Since then, tourism numbers to the Gulf Coast have continued to rise aided by the activities of CVBs (often in spite of the efforts of CVBs!). The area has even attracted groups of visitors who would never have thought of coming previously and now remember that the Gulf is a place to go, even if if they can’t remember what lead them to that thought.
So, have things changed? Maybe. The ability to track the source of bookings is there but definitive answers to what works is absent in the vast majority of cases. Although tourists make last moment buying decisions, those are usually based on ‘bucket lists’ formed over a long time.
To go back to original thought, that it’s becoming more difficult to know where to spend your marketing dollars, yes it probably is. There are many more channels, more opportunities and higher costs. However, people behave in much the same way as they always have.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Twickenham Travel’s corporate travel department in the late 1970s. Not a computer in sight!
