'And now, a word
from our sponsor . . . travel

The Travel Channel has a gift for tourism marketers — four public service announcements that promote the benefits of travel. They are free and accessible, and smart marketers can use them on their own Web sites or work with a local TV station to promote the many values of tourism.

The PSAs resulted from a partnership between the Travel Channel and the U.S. Travel Association, whose ongoing message is the economic impact of travel and its enhancement of our quality of life. Three of the PSAs are 15 seconds long, and one is 30 seconds.

Moms expect to sacrifice
to avoid stay-cations this year

In a national survey of moms planning 2010 vacations, 80 percent will make sacrifices to guarantee a family trip this year. Most moms have determined their vacation dates — 57 percent in summer and 24 percent during spring break, making spring break the second-busiest travel period.

Nashville-based WhyMomsRule.com, a blog that tracks trends affecting moms and their buying habits, ran the survey. To afford vacations, moms said they expect to eat out less during the year (42 percent), spend less on entertainment all year (33 percent) and forego major purchases (23 percent).

To save while on vacation, many will seek less expensive destinations, stay shorter times and drive instead fly. And by the way, they hate add-on airline fees.

Turning the patient into a tourist

If you live in Shelbyville, Tenn., and drive 70 miles to a hospital in Nashville for a specialized eye exam, are you a medical tourist? Probably not.

However, if you live in Shelbyville and fly to Germany for cataract surgery, you definitely are what the travel industry labels a medical tourist.

People are crossing borders for medical procedures every day, and planes carry patients in both directions. The very fact that there’s even a Web site that tries to educate Americans about the ins and outs of going to Europe for medical needs is proof that the concept is growing.

So what does this mean to travel marketers in the Southeast? If you have a major medical center in your area, discretionary medical tourists might become traditional tourists if your tourism bedside manner is good.

Rocking on a river roller coaster

The waters have been rough for rafting companies in recent years — no pun intended. For instance, the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources reports a nine percent decline on the New, Gauley and other rivers in 2009, and a partial explanation from one outfitter is distressing.

Dave Arnold, managing partner of Class VI River Runners, blames the drop in part on today's video-savvy youth in an Associated Press report.

"Children today growing up aren't being exposed to the outdoors, simple things like going down creeks and turning over rocks," Arnold said. "The demographic changes in America have been pretty dramatic. Some of that is age. Some of that is cultural."

March 2010

Go ahead, get inside
a meeting planner’s mind

If you try to attract meetings to your destination, attraction or resort, you always are challenged to think like a meeting planner as you pitch business and negotiate contracts. For a look inside the mind of one veteran meeting planner, here are his "Top 10 Tips To Reduce Meeting Costs." Understanding his perspective may help you land a meeting.

Don’t tell this woman
tourism jobs are dead ends

Naysayers sometimes deride tourism jobs as minimum wage dead ends. Don't say that to Valerie Ferguson. She started in the hospitality industry in 1977 as a Hyatt Regency Atlanta night auditor at $2.90 an hour. We suspect she's doing better than that now that she's back in Atlanta as senior vice president of the soon-to-open Loews Atlanta Hotel and other Loews properties on the East Coast. Here’s her success story.

These pro-tourism
comments will grab you

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