We’re pleased to confirm that the 2012 Tourism, Technology + Marketing Workshop will be held on Thursday, November 8, 2012 at Embassy Suites Resort in South Lake Tahoe, CA.
This hands-on event allows tourism marketers to learn about the latest technologies (Pinterest anyone?) and how to integrate them into your existing marketing strategies. More information will be forthcoming, but in the meantime, mark your calendars.
The 2012 Amgen Tour of California begins this weekend. As one of the largest and best recognized international cycling races in the U.S., Amgen attracts world-class professional cyclists to the state, and affords sponsoring destinations an opportunity to reach a truly global audience.
We at Strategic Marketing Group were curious to know whether Amgen worked as a tourism marketing vehicle for California destinations. Last year we interviewed three communities that participated in the 2011 tour afterward, to find out whether it worked for them.
We’re pleased to share the results of those interviews with you in our latest white paper, After Amgen, which is available as a free download. Download the After Amgen white paper now.
Oh North Dakota Tourism—are you pure genius or did your weak will create a new wave in ad-making?
The point of quality print ads and ad campaigns make suggestions, and hint towards something that will create controversy. Well maybe not controversy but at least a reaction to catch the eyes of people. Let’s face it, America is just a little on the prude side—I guess we can chalk that up to the conservative fanatics that can’t have a change of mind or heart since their mind rules their heart.
That’s the case we have here; so what, the ad is a little edgy and at my first glance I’d say a legend would be similar to a cowboy, a cowboy cruising modern-day North Dakota who lives a single life hittin’ the saloons and ready to do what people in the prime of their life do—go out and have fun. Maybe North Dakota has a new Vegas-like ad campaign, even if they didn’t mean for it to be seen by the portion of people who think where what happens in Fargo doesn’t really happen, we just wish it would.
North Dakota’s ad works if their intent was to be racy and cause controversy to make their ads stand out more. I feel that if I saw their ads straight up that it wouldn’t make me book a trip to North Dakota nor even give anything close to North Dakota chance. What does work for the N.D. ads is being a little too edgy and having some people overreact to the point where the ads get pulled—that might make me think whomever let the ads get published knowing there would be hubbub where the creator of the ad itself took a little step too far and is now getting the dirty end of the stick pointed at by some—so maybe it’s a small success wrapped in a big package.
Guest post provided by Mike Ribaudo
Strategic Marketing Group Releases 5th annual Tourism Outlook Whitepaper
South Lake Tahoe, CA – While many look to the New Year as a celebration, the Strategic Marketing Group (SMG) sees it as a time for reflection, as well as publishing its annual Tourism Outlook. It has just released its 5th annual Tourism Outlook whitepaper, a comprehensive review of relevant economic and travel industry data as it relates to the California tourism industry. Carl Ribaudo, President of SMG, also includes insights and personal observations from his extensive work with DMOs throughout California.
“The Outlook is our take on the tourism industry as we move into the new year, including both the good and the bad,” notes Carl Ribaudo. “This is our gift to the tourism industry, and we hope it is useful as DMOs plan for 2012.”
The Tourism Outlook is a must-read for any destination marketing executive. It includes a wide variety of information including federal and state level economic data, airline, lodging and other pertinent travel data, along with SMG’s robust analysis and forecasts.
Download your complimentary copy of the SMG 2012 Tourism Outlook today.
Marketing 101 on the street
Everyone knows that selling hot dogs on a New York Street corner is a dog-eat-dog world, what with competition from other vendors as well as traditional brick and mortar restaurants that can be found everywhere. So to survive and thrive in this rough-and-tumble world you need to know something about marketing. Take our friend here in this picture, a resilient entrepreneur, and look at what a great job of marketing he has done, lessons to be learned by all.
- Location, Location, Location – Notice how this entrepreneur has set up right on the corner for potential high traffic and visibility.
- Brand Awareness – Note the branding message Sabrett, one of New York’s finest hot hogs, located on umbrellas. This high visibility approach is done to get the message out and create as much awareness as possible.
- Product Lines – Note the multiple product lines Hot Dog, Hot Sausage, Hot Pretzel, Hot Knish and Beef Patty. This product mix is designed to both attract different segments from a snacker who just wants a pretzel to someone who wants a hot sausage and even cross selling..”Would you like a pretzel to go with that dog?”
- Merchandising- Notice how well this entrepreneur merchandises his products, Photos for the food, actual bottles of drinks (and notice the variety, not just Coke or Pepsi) and if you look close enough you can see the fresh pretzels right where you check out and pay (spontaneous purchase).
- Customer Service – Notice how this entrepreneur is face to face with his customer, it creates a great opportunity for warm human contact.
All in all this vendors marketing efforts are concise, aligned and designed to take a potential customer from brand awareness to purchase in a very short time. Lessons to be considered in the new year.
What’s up with travel in December and January, and more importantly will it ever increase? A quick look at the occupancy trends in California reveals quite clearly that despite an overall occupancy rate of about 63%, December and January fall of the cliff with about a 50% occupancy rate.
2010 California Occupancy Trends
The conventional wisdom has been that most people who travel in December do so for family reasons around the holidays and that many people don’t travel in January because they are recovering from all the spending that they did for the holidays. The question I have then is is this all there is? Will the occupancy for these months always just be what it is?
Let’s look at another example. Years ago Halloween was a sleepy little night where kids went out trick or treating. Then came a Coors promotion using Elvira and the rest they say is history. Halloween is now one of the most popular events every year, for both kids and adults.
Maybe December and January is just waiting for some very interesting new and exciting marketing. Anyone know if Elvira is free?
May your December be a balance of reflection and celebration, and may 2012 be successful in every way.
We at SMG aren’t good at tooting our own horn, but Carl’s recent award by the local Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce deserves mention, as much for the terrific video produced by our friends at Outside TV as for the recognition.
Carl makes some great points in this video, which are valid whether you’re a public agency or private organization. Creating an environment that welcomes innovation and change is something we’ve tried to foster within our own company as well as with our clients. So the award is a nice affirmation from the local community.
In an economic era that has been as challenging as we have ever seen, in a tourism industry that has also been slow to recover and in a time when the consumer has more choice an control of the purchase transaction including weather to take a trip or not, what kind or lodging to stay and what activities to do it all comes back to hospitality. According to Encarta World Dictionary hospitality is defined as “kindness to visitors: friendly, welcoming, and generous treatment offered to guests or strangers”.
Here is a great example. There’s this little lodging property located on Highway 395 in Walker California. Walker has two or three lodging properties and a couple of seasonal restaurants. Most of the people visiting Walker are passing through or staying for fishing along the Walker River. But to their credit this property sends an important message to all the motorcycle touring riders that they are welcome at the property and they make the claim explicitly. Now I know it’s not possible to tell every segment they are welcome using a banner, but it is important to be reminded that the essence of the business we are in is to make people feel welcome. Too often our focus is rooms sold or average daily rate but it is just as important to let visitors to your destination know they are welcome. After all isn’t that what the business is all about?
Think about it. Perhaps the best marketing strategy for these challenging times is the simplest.
This week SMG hosted the 2nd annual Tourism, Technology + Marketing Workshop in South Lake Tahoe, CA. We saw nearly 100 attendees from the Lake Tahoe region and beyond, and were really excited about the roster of presenters, whose session ranged from immersive multimedia to developing an interactive strategy. While the topics were varied, if I had to distill the various sessions into a few words, it would be relevancy, content and strategy.
As Troy Thompson, Principal and Senior Consultant at Travel 2.0 Consulting Group noted during his keynote, relevancy is everything. Just because there’s a shiny new social media app out there, consider whether it really serve the purposes and needs of your consumers before jumping into it. If it doesn’t provide value to your audience, is it worth the investment?
If content creation or curation isn’t part of your strategy, then it should be, according to more than a few speakers. As Colleen Dalton, Director of Guest Experience at Mammoth Mountain noted, blogs are the rocket fuel of content creation. And for destinations, video is a powerful way to sell the experience of travel, as Mike Henderson, Owner of Arborglyph explained during his session on creating video. Or as Greg Murtha, President of VTour put it during his presentation on immersive multimedia, video speaks louder than words. Jake Fields, Creative Director of Treeline Interactive, spoke about mobile and the role it (and mobile content) plays in his session on the future of the guest experience.
Content goes beyond what you create on your own. Think user generated content (reviews, blog posts, Tweets, videos). Impossible to control but necessary to monitor. After all, we all have online reputations, whether we’re aware of it or not. Recognizing that and understanding what and how to monitor (and respond) is both an art and a science, and dare I say a strategy. So the presentation by Kyle Duffy, Vice President at Revinate, on online reputation management was useful.
In terms of technology tools worth investing in, many will agree that Facebook is where their audience spends time. Out&About Marketing President Milena Regos’ presentation on Facebook for Business was relevant, offering up some good examples of brands doing it right. Along with a few shout-outs to local businesses.
A strategy can serve as a blueprint for action, and Eric Bengston, General Manager of Swift Digital, showed how to do just that in his session on developing an interactive strategy. Rob Gaedtke, VP of Creative Services at KPS3 Marketing, showed attendees how to map technology & media to the travel buying process, and better match their products and services to their consumers place in the sales funnel.
Huge thanks to all our presenters for being so generous with their time and expertise, to our sponsors for their support, and of course the attendees, for asking great questions (and talking about it on Twitter).
There was a lot of information to absorb, so much so that I know I missed some key points. So feel free to help out by sharing your thoughts and takeaways in the comments.