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Rhode Island Taps Non-Tourism Exec to Fill Chief Marketing Officer Role…and More People News

June 21, 2016 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

Following Rhode Island‘s “Cooler + Warmer” tourism promotion launch gone wrong and the dismissal of Betsy Wall (Something Brief – April 4, 2016), Governor Raimondo announced the hire of Lara Salamano, a University of Rhode Island graduate with 20 years of marketing experience outside of tourism.

Providence Journal reports that RI legislators finalizing the state’s budget have proposed transferring about $1 million from this year’s $5-million campaign back to the regional tourism councils, due to disappointment over ill-fated campaign. Read more here.

Brand USA has announced the appointment of Tom Garzilli as the agency’s new chief marketing officer. Since 2013, Garzilli had served as Sr.VP, global partnerships. Garzilli succeeds David Whitaker, who held the CMO position for about a year before taking on a new post last week as president and CEO of Choose Chicago.

The latest list of 32 professionals appointed to the Travel and Tourism Advisory Board (TTAB), advising the current US Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzer, has been announced. To read more in Inbound Report, click here.

Keep your peers up-to-date by sending news from your circles for publication in Something Brief.

Photo credits: LinkedIn, The COffee Shop Trader, Visit CA, Alicia Lacey Photography, Sar Maroof

Songwriter Alert: Visit Annapolis Says “No Jingles, Please” + Q&A With Dan Cook

September 20, 2022 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Songwriter Competition

Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County and the Annapolis Songwriters Festival have teamed up to create a songwriter competition that provides rising and established performing artists with an opportunity to create a destination theme song for possible use in a future VAAAC advertising campaign.

The prize? The creator of the winning song will receive a $1,000 honorarium as well as complimentary accommodations and round-trip transportation to Annapolis to perform the song before a live audience at the DMO’s Annual Meeting and Tourism Industry Reception in Historic Annapolis on January 24, 2023.

We caught up with Dan Cook, Marketing & Communications Director to find out more.

Q & A

The Travel Vertical: How did the idea come about?

Dan Cook: On my first week on the job as Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County’s new Director of Marketing & Communications, my Executive Director and I walked over to Rams Head On Stage here in Downtown Annapolis to discuss a major sponsorship opportunity of a brand new event. When meeting with them, just in the heat of the moment conversation the idea popped in our heads of curating a Songwriter Competition as part of our sponsorship and the event hosts loved it. So that is where the idea was born!

The Travel Vertical: What has the reaction been so far?

Dan Cook: Phenomenal! Our Executive Director Kristen Pironis was on her way to the kick-off event to announce the competition on a giant stage in Downtown Annapolis and walking by her side was a guitar-toting gentleman. Of course, being in tourism & hospitality, she had to welcome him to Annapolis and in doing so, found out he is a BIG UP AND COMING TALENT and just had to ask him to be part of the competition. He thought the idea was so cool and unique and couldn’t wait to get to work to throw his “cowboy hat” into the ring.

The Annapolis Songwriters Festival last weekend was a major success for Annapolis & Anne Arundel County, Maryland and attracted celebrities, talented music artists and songwriters, and tons of visitors from around the globe. It was so magical to see musicians at almost every bar downtown, and with dozens of yachts lined up along the waterfront listening to live music at City Dock.”

The Travel Vertical: How does Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County think the destination will benefit from having its own song?

Dan Cook: People know of Annapolis as America’s Sailing Capital and its magnificent architecture and Chesapeake Cuisine. But very few have heard of our other product – Anne Arundel County and the many other great adventures that can be found here. Our goal for the destination theme song competition was to bring all of our unique assets into a song that can potentially be used in a future advertising and marketing campaign.

The Travel Vertical: By the way, must the song have words? Or could it be musical without voice?

Dan Cook: We have only one rule – NO AD JINGLES, PLEASE. But yes, we are hoping that songwriters submit a song with words that is 2-4 minutes in length.

The Travel Vertical: If the winning songwriter can’t sing, can they have someone sing it for them?

Dan Cook: Absolutely! The submitted entry will not be judged on the production quality of the recording, but artists can make the decision to collaborate with any talent to perform the song. The Marketing team of Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County plans to work hand-in-hand with the winning songwriter to pair them with a production studio to bring the song to final format, and just maybe, pair the song to video (a music video, if you will.

Related: What does a destination sound like? Sonoma County Tourism created an answer through the project, Sonoma Sound — The Travel Vertical Podcast

A Roundup: Did-You-Know Facts & Steal-This-Idea DMO Partnerships

August 30, 2022 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

That’s how much for a baseball card? IBM Watson® on the tennis court, social media platform updates, valuable stuff from the non-virtual world and DMO partnerships from cooking competitions to wellness and T-shirt designs.

The 2022 #USOpen is in full swing! See how the USTA and IBM Watson® are acing the fan experience with AI technology to analyze millions of expert opinions and player performance metrics to transform data into meaningful insights. See how Match Insights with Watson® works to crunch the numbers and develop Likelihood to Win for 10 million online fans.

Emirates Airlines has a new brand ambassador — Gerry the Goose. New TV and online advertising campaign takes playful look at the airline’s “Fly Better” philosophy. The ad is running in 25 countries for one month, starting on August 30.

https://youtu.be/5lGRtUA9Mds

Twitter is rolling out Circle this week, a feature that allows users to send tweets to a select group of followers. Twitter Circle enables users to include up to 150 people for semi-private messages and exclude the general public. Get a quick user guide from Twitter on Twitter.

More layoffs are hitting the tech world, and this time there are deep cuts inside Snap Inc.

Word has it that the maker of Snapchat is planning to lay off roughly 20% of its more than 6,400 full-time employees starting this week. Snap stock has already fallen 79% this year.

Huntsville, AL is ranked #1 best place to live and Myrtle Beach, SC is the fastest-growing place in the nation for 2022-2023. In an annual report that’s been popular for years, U.S. News analyzed 150 metro areas in the USA. Data geeks can find the sources and methodology for the math here.

Forget meta. Never mind NFTs.

Last weekend, a mint+ condition 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for a record-breaking $12.6 million, indicating that the experience of owning the real thing is worth a mint. This is the most valuable piece of sports memorabilia ever to be sold at auction to date, just sayin’.

Did you know that you can calculate the carbon footprint of your trip on the website of Sonoma County Tourism? They’ve partnered with Sustainable Travel International to offer a carbon calculator on the website. Check it out here AND get a calculator for your own website here.

Visit Myrtle Beach has partnered with The WorkShop Content Studios to develop Chef Swap at The Beach, a new cooking competition television series that will highlight the culinary talents of chefs throughout the Grand Strand. Six 30-minute episodes featuring Chef Amanda Freitag will premier on The Cooking Channel on October 1.

In each episode, Amanda will take two local chefs out of their comfort zones by swapping them into each other’s kitchens. Chefs have no idea where they’re going, what ingredients they’ll have, or what type of dish they’ll cook. They’ll grab only one ingredient to bring with them and have just 60 minutes to make a dish that might earn them their very own Chef Swap knife and major bragging rights. Throughout the Chef Swap at The Beach series, Chef Freitag and her fellow judges will visit 12 Myrtle Beach restaurants.

Visit Stockton now provides Recite Me US assistive technology on their website to enable web visitors to customize a digital experience to suit their needs. To check it out at VisitStockton.org, click the the #accessibility button at the lower left. Features to provide users access to online information and services barrier-free. include:

• Screen Reader
• Language Translations (over 100 options)
• Styling Options
• Reading Aids

Visit Sarasota has launched a relocation guide, “Careers on the Suncoast,” in collaboration with the Sarasota County Economic Development Corporation to encourage relocation tourism to Sarasota County, Florida. It features amenities and profiles its residents by highlighting their careers and quality of life living in the community.

Casandra Matej, president and CEO, Visit Orlando; Dr. Antonio Crespo, Managing Physician, Orlando Health Medical Group – Infectious Diseases; Dr. Don Plumley, Pediatric Surgeon and Trauma Medical Director at Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children; Susan Stallard, Associate Vice President of Quality, Orlando Health; Thibaut van Marcke, President of Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital and Brian Comes, Chair, Board of Directors, Visit Orlando. (credit: Visit Orlando)

Visit Orlando is partnering with Orlando Health to launch health and wellness support that includes a new staffed health clinic with virtual doctors at Orange County Convention Center. There’s also a newly-established concierge telephone number to access to visitor-specific wellness tips (such as tips on hydration, how to stay sun-safe and instructions on what to do in an emergency) and health resources on 321-265-4200. News release here.

Tourism Ireland is going with a new PR strategy, shifting its focus to social media. The government-backed plan will pay over €300,000 this year to influencers TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. The DMO is said to be using the Meltwater product called Klear for vetting influencers’ engagement and effectiveness, choosing not to simply rely on the luck of the Irish.

Visit Arvada, Colorado is crowd sourcing six options for a new graphic as a T-shirt, hat, and mug design via their website and Facebook group. To vote, an email is required. (Full disclosure: The Travel Vertical voted for ‘B’ — 50% VOWELS 100% AWESOME.)

‘The Visitor Economy’: A Guest Post from Domenic Bravo, President & CEO, Visit Cheyenne

August 30, 2022 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

“Bravo: Combined efforts allow us to grow our visitor economy,” reads the headline in the Wyoming News. The opinion piece which also appeared in The Cheyenne Post is shared here with the author’s permission.

A post by Domenic Bravo, President & CEO, Visit Cheyenne and Downtown Cheyenne Development Authority.

What is the Visitor Economy?

For us in Laramie County it is creating a community where people have a high quality of life, businesses are thriving, and we continue to honor the unique and spectacular place we call home while opening our hearts and arms to people who want to experience our home.

At its core, a visitor economy is the economic impact of visitors to our area. At Visit Cheyenne, we take it a step further and help to develop the destination, creating a great place to live AND visit.

Everything we do and support is intentional, with our economic success the ultimate return on investment. From signature events we have created like Cheyenne Restaurant Week, Hell on Wheels Rodeo and Old West Holiday to all the events we support like EdgeFest, Culture X, Friday Nights on the Plaza, Pine Bluff’s Kite Festival, Harvest Feast, etc., everything has a positive impact on our community, and it reaches the entire County.

In June of 2021, we unveiled our Laramie County Tourism Master Plan and hit the ground running. In the last year, we created additional signature events, started the 15^th Street Railroad Experience, merged with the Downtown Development Authority, started on the Belvoir Ranch/Big hole project and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In addition to all the extra projects we have worked on, we have also expanded and enhanced our core operations.

We took our marketing efforts to new levels during the last few years. Using good data analysis and working closing with partners, many of our campaigns returned numbers like 28 to 1 and 19 to 1, direct spend impact. This means that people saw our ads, clicked on our ads, and then travelled to our community and spent their money here.

Even the best brands need an update from time to time and we’ve updated our logo and our marketing campaign. A new fresh approach to “Living the Legend” was unveiled to industry acclaim winning a Gold Hermes Creative Award. We took this new identity and completely rebuilt and refreshed our website, continuing to provide the most comprehensive listings of events, attractions, dining options, shopping and places to stay in the area. Our campaigns focus on the diversity of people and experiences available to visitors to our great city.

Our group and convention sales have had a strong recovery after 2020 and we have hosted numerous conferences including Select Traveler and Small Market Meetings which brought travel and meeting planners here to experience our community. We have already seen the fruits of our labor as many groups from these conferences have planned group tours or meetings here in Cheyenne in future years.

Our PR efforts have netted us numerous national and regional digital and magazine articles in publications like NASCAR.com, Cowboys and Indians and True West. We have also added thousands to our various social media channels that includes organic growth from people that love our brand.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that one of the great things about our community is the people. We have heard numerous claims of how nice, knowledgeable and willing to help our residents are by countless visitors. So, thank you for helping to make us a destination.

So far in 2022 visitors have spent nearly $40 million in our community provide $3.1 million in sales tax revenue in Laramie County. Money that builds fire stations, funds road repairs and enhances our downtown. Money that we don’t have to pay as residents, but amenities that we all get to enjoy. Forty-seven hundred of our neighbors work in the tourism industry equating to 1 out of every 7 jobs in the county.

Our visitor economy is very strong in Laramie County, and thanks to the voters who continue to trust us with investing the proceeds from the lodging tax, we will continue to grow and innovate, bringing new experiences for our residents and visitors to our community.

Six DMOs Doing Ultra-Cool Things: Atlanta, Asheville, Louisville, Oakland, NYC, and Florida

August 23, 2022 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

Destination inspiration based around the metaverse, food, pro tennis, bourbon, and Broadway shows from DMOs across the USA.

ATLANTA META WORLD

Introducing Atlanta Meta World from Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, the first-of-its-kind metaverse experience of a city destination. This is the first step toward a vision that will provide meeting planners and prospective visitors the opportunity to virtually explore key elements of the Atlanta experience while interacting with other virtual world visitors and representatives of the venues.

WHAT IS IT? Atlanta Meta World is a visually-realistic virtual world representation of the as-built environment. The starting point of the experience is the visitor information center in Centennial Olympic Park. This 22-acre green space on Georgia World Congress Center’s campus lies in the heart of downtown Atlanta, surrounded by attractions, hotels and restaurants. Visitors to the virtual world today can explore the many areas of the park and will soon be able to visit and explore attractions, meeting and event venues throughout Atlanta.

Atlanta Meta World is a truly persistent, photo-realistic representation of a destination where users can select an avatar and navigate the virtual experience, interacting with other users in real time. Atlanta Meta World is accessible through a browser, so anyone with a computer and internet connection can enjoy the experience. Atlanta Meta World allows the destination specialists and partner venue representatives to conduct customer presentations to private and public groups before guiding them around the facilities on a virtual tour.

To read more and enter Atlanta Meta World, click here.

ADVANTAGE ASHEVILLE

The United States Tennis Association has announced Explore Asheville as the official tourism partner for the 2022 US Open on Aug. 29 – Sept. 11, placing the North Carolina destination front and center throughout the event that takes place 700 miles away in New York City.

The partnership with the US Open will provide Asheville with on-court signage in Arthur Ashe Stadium, video boards at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and marketing messages on usopen.org and US Open Radio. One evening session during the tournament will be designated “Asheville Night.”

“Explore Asheville is proud to elevate our relationship with the USTA and Asheville’s reputation as a creative, vibrant community for leisure travel, business groups and sports events,” said Victoria Isley, President & CEO of Explore Asheville and the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority. “Asheville is only the second city in history to host three Billie Jean King Cup matches – and we plan to draw more brand-aligned events to benefit the Asheville community.”

FLORIDA FOR FOODIES

Louis Grayson (Ramen Lab Eatery), Robert Moehling (Robert Is Here), Rick Mace (Tropical Smokehouse), Kim Kelly (Hurricane Alley), and Daniel Salgado (Toro Latin Kitchen + Tequila Library) present their signature dishes and drinks.

“We are thrilled to let people know about the incredible culinary scene that we have in Florida,” said Staci Mellman, Chief Marketing Officer, VISIT FLORIDA. “And who better to tell that story than the restaurateurs themselves?” VISIT FLORIDA and Emergent Media have announced the launch of Florida’s Table to promote the state’s dynamic culinary scene by showcasing a diverse handful of restaurants across Southeast Florida. Each episode features a local chef or restaurateur representing their cultural origins through flavors, culminating in the presentation of a Floridian signature dish, such as Duck Ramen at Ramen Lab Eatery in Boca Raton.

Distribution is driven through Emergent Media’s Paradise audience network, which embodies a curious, go-getter with experiential travel ambitions. Organic and paid social programming runs through mid-September on Web, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Florida’s Table positions Florida as the perfect destination for modern explorers to satisfy their taste buds, as well as their adventure cravings.

“Travelers already love Florida’s beautiful beaches, iconic theme parks, and hidden outdoor gems, with the launch of this effort they will discover yet another wonderful thing about Florida,” said Mellman.

LOUISVILLE GETS SOCIAL

Louisville Tourism is launching 78 Social, a new and exclusive members-only club that will help advance the city’s brand and assist in rekindling tourism momentum. This new initiative is aimed at encouraging community members to stay informed on the latest offerings in Louisville and act as brand stewards by sharing their passion for the city with others.

There are individual and corporate tiers for business professionals seeking hospitality industry-related education and programming. Topics will include professional development, DEI, Bourbon history, personal branding and more. Members will have access to exclusive events, grand openings, Bourbon tastings and sneak peeks with new city attractions and restaurants, as well as exclusive networking opportunities with key hospitality industry leaders.

The 2019 Louisville Visitor Profile conducted by Destination Analysts shows that visitors are seeking museums, dining, bourbon tastings, and distillery tours as the top activities while in town.

OAKLAND STEPS OUT ON THE VEGAN TRAIL

Oakland Vegan Trail is the first destination in the nation to feature this kind of trail (with menus and a map, too). More than 20 vegan restaurants are dotted around town, offering plant-based Filipino to Mexican to Ethiopian and everything in between.

President & CEO, Peter Gamez appeared on the local news along with Imani Greer, Chef & Owner of Oakland’s own Roasted and Raw, to talk about vegan vs. vegetarian and to make a few tasty dishes.

REVIVAL: NYC BROADWAY WEEK

*Michelle Sessoms and Jennifer Wolfe in the North American Tour of Moulin Rouge! The Musical (Photo by Matthew Murphy for MurphyMade)*

Curtain up. “For the first time since 2019, NYC & Company announced the return of the fall edition of NYC Broadway Week, which allows guests to purchase two tickets for the price of one on select Broadway shows for the duration of the deal. This year marks the 11th edition of the biannual program, which is coming back early this fall for shows from September 6 through September 25,” said Janette Roush, Executive Vice President, Marketing & Digital at NYC & Company.

“Since its launch in 2011, NYC Broadway Week has offered visitors and locals alike the world’s best theatrical experiences at a remarkable value,” said NYC & Company President and CEO Fred Dixon. “After a three-year hiatus, we are proud to bring the fall edition of our signature Broadway Week program back to audiences.”

Since its launch, NYC Broadway Week has sold more than 1,900,000 tickets, generating over $100 million in revenue.

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Search Results for: brand usa

Rhode Island Taps Non-Tourism Exec to Fill Chief Marketing Officer Role…and More People News

Songwriter Alert: Visit Annapolis Says “No Jingles, Please” + Q&A With Dan Cook

Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Songwriter Competition

Q & A

‘The Visitor Economy’: A Guest Post from Domenic Bravo, President & CEO, Visit Cheyenne

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