→ Travel: It’s a powerful force
→ Are you above average?
→ ‘Extra! Read all about it!’
→ Frustration for air travelers
→ Want to hit the road?
→ GA 511 has the answer
→ Vela Leads Parks in SE
→ Florida's Counterpunch
→ STS Events & Dates
INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Travel: It’s a powerful force
Have you ever wanted to give a politician a dope-slap (friendly, of course) when he just doesn’t seem to value travel and tourism?
Explaining the impact of travel and tourism is a challenge, perhaps because so many of its components are relatively small. The industry’s true story is one of immense size—the forest rather than individual trees—and you now have a tool to show that forest.
Instead of risking an assault charge in your next conversation with a politician, just show him www.PowerOfTravel.org. That’s a new Travel Industry Association site that tells the story plainly; the data dips down to individual congressional districts in just three clicks of your mouse.
It defies mathematics, but most people probably consider themselves above average. As someone in the travel industry, here’s one question to test whether you really are a cut above: How many states have you visited? The average is...
There’s a news kid on the Washington, D.C., museum block. Not a new kid, but a “news” kid, as in the Newseum.
It’s a $450 million pantheon to the history, craft, foibles and failures of newsgathering. You may remember an earlier incarnation in nearby Arlington, Va., but it closed six years ago when attention turned to creating the newly opened facility that has three times the exhibition space.
It’s interactive to the max (yes, you can test your teleprompter skills at the “Be a Reporter” location and see whether Charles Gibson and Brian Williams need to be looking over their shoulders) as it explores all areas of journalism.
Inherent in every aspect of the Newseum (located on Pennsylvania Avenue across from the National Gallery of Art and only blocks from the Capitol) is an education about the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Newseum Deputy Director Susan Bennett summed up the challenge: “More people know who Homer Simpson is than can name the five freedoms (in the First Amendment).” Can you?
Frustration among air travelersAmerican air travelers opted not to take 41 million trips over the past 12 months.
This startling stat is from a TIA survey that clearly showed travelers' frustration with long delays, flight cancellations and security tie-ups. The net effect was a loss to the U.S. economy of $26 billion, yes billion. TIA has scheduled an emergency summit June 17 to chart how to address the issue with policymakers. Read more.
AROUND THE SOUTHEAST
Need a reason to hit the road?
Zorb Smoky Mountains in Pigeon Forge is one. So are the Alabama Scenic River Trail and the Frog Bog at the Newport Aquarium in northern Kentucky.
Those attractions are on a list of new or improved U.S. travel attractions for 2008 compiled state by state in a USA Today article. The collection from around the Southeast is a quite diverse.
By the way, if you don’t know Zorb, it’s a new extreme sport imported from New Zealand. It involves an inflatable ball 11 feet in diameter, a steep hillside and you inside the ball.
If you encounter a Georgia highway problem and can’t figure it out, the answer is just a cell phone call away. Georgia 511, activated last August, is ready for its first full summer providing statewide traffic and travel information. It’s part of an initiative to make 511 the national number for such calls.
Georgia 511 information covers all interstate and state routes in Georgia, statewide incident reporting, Atlanta-area requests for motorist assistance, tourism information and much more. There’s a companion web site: www.511ga.org.The National Park Service has named David Vela director of its Southeast region (office in Atlanta), which has 66 parks in nine states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Among them is America’s most visited national park, Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina. The park service is a signatory to the Southeast Tourism Society’s Memorandum of Understanding that keeps channels of communication open between tourism interests in the region and a variety of federal agencies. Vela most recently was superintendent of the George Washington Memorial Parkway.
Visit Florida is counterpunching the national economic slowdown with a push to get Floridians to explore their own state and especially to visit some of its less-famous attractions this summer. 
The campaign is called “Been There, Haven’t Done That.” Travel increased in Florida 3.4 percent in the first quarter of the year, and tourism officials hope in-state travel will bolster the year’s totals.
IMPORTANT STS DATES
June 27 - 28, 2008:
STS Board & Board of Trustees Meeting - Daufuskie Island, S.C.
July 27 - August 1, 2008:
Marketing College - Dahlonega, Ga.
September 3 - 5, 2008:
Fall Meeting - Little Rock, Ark.
