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The Travel Vertical: July 25, 2018

You Probably Deserve a Prize and Here’s Your Chance: The eTSY Awards

The eTSY Awards: Presented by Expedia Media Group Solutions and Simpleview at eTourism Summit 2018. We’re searching for excellence in 13 original—but highly relevant—categories. Judging is based on: 1) Strategy and Objective; 2) Creativity; and 3) Impact/Measurability. We cannot wait to see your entry…or two, or even three; there’s no limit. Read more and submit today.

State Tourism Budget Growth Slows Ahead of Governors’ Races in Midterms

Pressure on state budgets mounts as 36 states and three territories hold gubernatorial elections this fall. State tourism budgets across the USA are all over the map. literally. What might it mean for dollars allocated to tourism promotion? Read more here.

5 ‘Only Slightly Exaggerated’ Questions With Travel Oregon

ICYMI: Travel Oregon has created animation magic. Some folks are inspired by kids riding a giant rabbit through a tulip field. Others may want to know the tribal myths around the creation story of Crater Lake. See the whimsical video and learn how it integrates real life calls to action in a Q&A found here.

eTourism Summit 2018 Speakers Present DMO Case Studies

Here’s the latest. Check back often as we add more speakers to the lineup of DMO pros and their media agencies presenting the best (and an occasional flop) of city, state, region, and county digital tourism campaigns. Register now to get your seat. More information here.

5 Ways Your Travel and Tourism Brand Can Benefit From Voice Search

Think about the way people ask questions: Who, what, where, when, why and how are at the core. Build content around the answers to these questions to optimize the key phrases that will surface via discovery in voice search. Build out that content through websites and micro-sites, blogs and FAQ pages. Read more tips here.

The Very Best: Oregon, Tennessee, and Nashville CVB Collect Creativity Awards at Cannes Lions Festival

June 24, 2018 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

Congratulations to Travel Oregon, Tennessee Department of Tourist Development and Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau for an impressive sweep of Silver Awards at this month’s 65th Annual International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France.

Travel Oregon: The Game
Agency: Weiden + Kennedy, Portland
Silver Award

The Brief: “We needed a way to send Oregonians around the state during the slow tourist season, so we created a video game that would do just that. It was an homage to the classic computer game, The Oregon Trail, but updated with over 20 mini-games designed to showcase the many winter activities and vacation spots around Oregon. (See The Travel Vertical, Nov. 8, 2017.)

Games included everything from downhill skiing and snowshoeing to pretending to be a sommelier and checking IDs at a bar. Perils on the journey included Oregon-centric jokes such as overdosing on kombucha or dying from caffeine withdrawal. Media partners included Hulu, Discovery, Pandora, Reddit, Undertone, Zefr, and BuzzFeed plus Atlas Obscura, Expedia, and TripAdvisor.”

In case you missed Travel Oregon: The Game, here it is.

Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau: “It All Begins with a Song”
Agency: VML Kansas City
Silver Award

The Brief: “Prove that Nashville is America’s only music city by telling the story in a way no other city could tell. ‘It All Begins with a Song’ brings one of music’s most important, and most unknown forces into the spotlight: The songwriter––because in a world of homogenizing metropolises, it’s these unsung talents that truly make Nashville special. This full-length documentary with 49 interviews goes behind the performers to the Nashville people who create the songs you know and love, featuring both up-and-comers and greats who have turned Nashville into the world’s songwriting capital. “It All Begins With a Song” debuted at the Country 2 Country music festival and is now a documentary film.”

Watch a clip here.

Tennessee Department of Tourist Development: “The Colorblind Viewer”
Agency: VML Kansas City
Silver Award

Recent years have seen the state’s “One Minute Vacation,” “Tennessee Vacation Matchmaker,” (see The Travel Vertical, Aug. 15, 2016) and “Snap Your Way In,” (see The Travel Vertical, Aug. 8, 2017) among other campaigns, scoop up trophies from the world’s most prestigious creative communications event. Now they’ve done it again.

The Brief: “Roughly 13 million Americans have never seen fall foliage colors because they suffer from red-green color blindness. So we wondered, what if Tennessee could be the place they saw the true colors of fall for the first time? To make it possible, we got help from an optometrist, a technology company, and an engineer to outfit classic scenic viewers with special lenses that alleviate red-green color deficiency. The Colorblind Viewers were permanently installed at three of the state’s best scenic vistas. As colorblind people used them, and witnessed the red and orange glory of fall for the first time, we captured their emotional reactions for a short film to share the experience, posting it online an distributing it to national media outlets.

Execution: Because of the limited window of fall foliage, we promoted to 21-to-54-year-olds within short driving distance of Tennessee, with secondary targeting to people with colorblind-related search history. Thousands of people came for the experience before the leaves fell, with many more already planning their trip for next year.

Outcome: As video views quickly reached 9 million, the story became national news with features on The Associated Press, NBC Nightly News and ABC News resulting in 662 million earned impressions and $2.5 million in earned media value. As the news traveled, so did people. In the weeks following the campaign, hotel revenue near viewer locations was up 9.5 percent over the previous year. And an indication of the cultural impact, the public even began lobbying for the viewers to be installed in other states and parks across the country. As a result, Tennessee is currently working on a manufacturing process to make that possible. What started as an innovative advertising idea, turned into a life-changing product that will now make the beautiful landscape of America inclusive to more people.”

Watch the (full color) video here.

Digital Case Study: How ‘Think Iowa City’ Created Incremental Traffic

June 5, 2018 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

Who knew? Iowa City is one of the three most literary cities on earth (*and the only one in the USA), in a league with Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia…so says UNESCO. But there’s more––like college football, foodie heaven and medical tourism.

Utilizing predictive data science, billions of search and booking intent signals, and real-time analysis of anonymous traveler profiles, Sojern identified those people in-market for travel to or around the Iowa City area.

Think Iowa City, Strategic America and Sojern produced a multi-channel digital marketing campaign that inspired nearly 20,000 visits to the DMOs targeted webpages.

Drove 509 hotel bookings and 1,463 flight confirmations and an estimated $500K in traveler spend to the Iowa City area
Built brand awareness with engaging video and native formats, the latter of which achieved a CTR of 0.99%, nearly 10X higher than that of standard rich media.

Download the case study here.

Related: Iowa City Rebranding (Corridor Business 6/2/2017)

People Power: What’s Up With Who You Know

May 15, 2018 by Laurie Jo Miller Farr Leave a Comment

Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau‘s board of directors has been searching across the USA for a new COO who could become a candidate to head up the bureau when 27-year veteran leader CEO Patrick Moscaritolo eventually retires. Moscaritolo, 73, says he’s not going anywhere. The board hopes to have the new COO in place by the end of summer.

Following 10 years in the post, Kurt Burkhart retired on May 1, 2018 as head of Charlottesville Albemarle (VA) CVB. Prior to joining the CVB in Charlottesville, he was Executive Director of the CVB in Carlsbad, Calif. for eight years.

David Breisch moves from Quad Cities CVB to become the new Director of Marketing Technology for Destinations International, leading technology strategies across all digital media platforms at the association. David, 32, previously a 30-under-30 honoree at DMAI, succeeds Joy Lin, reporting to CMO Melissa Cherry.

Congrats to Leroy Bridges on his promotion to Vice President- Digital & Communications at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. Leroy is a strategist who mixes old-school and new-school skills, managing four PR firms (UK, Germany, New York and St. Pete), overseeing digital/interactive, websites, social media channels, new content and communication schedule. Leroy was a DMAI 30-under-30 in 2014. He’s also a top-rated eTourism Summit presenter.

Congrats to Jay Kinghorn on his promotion to Associate Managing Director at Utah Office of Tourism. Previously Director of Communications and Digital Strategy, Jay’s expanded responsibilities include oversight for consumer marketing in six international markets along with domestic digital channels, public relations, website and publications. In 2017, Jay received MMGY Global’s inaugural Peter Yesawich award for effective use of data and research to achieve marketing excellence. Jay’s presentations and moderating at eTourism Summit have been a big asset for our community.

Leah Chandler has just made a move from CMO at Missouri’s Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau to become Chief Marketing Officer at Puerto Rico Destination Management Organization. Leah is a 16-year pro in branding, advertising and marketing with emphasis in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Stanford Smith is Integrated Marketing Manager at Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, responsible for telling Detroit’s story on social networks with compelling original content. Stan is the founder of Pushing Social, marketing strategy and content marketing provider to small and medium-sized businesses, and co-author of “Born to Blog.” Stan recently talked to The Travel Vertical about conceiving and producing “Eats in the D,” a new YouTube foodie channel for Metro Detroit.

Jeffrey Vasser has been appointed executive director of the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism succeeding Jake Buganski, who had been acting executive director until joining a marketing and advertising firm in Philadelphia. Vasser accepted the job just weeks after he taken over as director of the Central Pennsylvania CVB. Before joining the latter, Vasser served as director general and CEO of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association and as president and chief operating officer of the Atlantic City CVA.

Charles Hill II has been named vice president of strategic development for Experience Columbus. He joins the organization from Rev1 Ventures, where he served as director of community outreach. Previously, he was senior relationship manager with United Way of Central Ohio.

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