Are You Ready to Hustle?; Operator-focused Education in Montréal
September 21, 2010
Interested in advertising in Tuesday? E-mail Kelley Burchell at kelley.burchell@NTAstaff.com.
TODAY’S ARTICLES
Are You Ready to Hustle?
Operator-focused Education in Montréal
U.S. National Park Visitation Up During Summer Months
Track and Win a Front Row Seat to Popular Convention Luncheon
Three Ways to Make the Most Use of LinkedIn
Deadline Today! Your Profile Form Inserted in All Tour Operator Notebooks
Donate to the Tourism Cares Silent Auction
Premium Exhibit Space Available at Convention
Industry News and Updates
Pull your polyester out of the attic and polish up your platform shoes. Tuesday Night Fever is coming to Convention. Will your ’70s moves be as good as Cathy Greteman and Jim Reddekopp’s?
The Tuesday night disco-themed dance party doesn’t require costumes, but they’re certainly encouraged! If you get in the mood ahead of time and want to show off your moves or how cool you were in the ’70s, e-mail NTA (or upload to Facebook) a video of you groovin’ to your favorite ’70s tune or a photo of you from that decade. The best dance video and the best photo wins a far out ’70s accessory of your choice!
We won’t be psychedelic all week long. From Broadway acts to Cirque du Soleil to our formal Gala finale, we have an entire social calendar planned for you!
More business. More fun. Register now. Keep on truckin’.
(Thanks to the Tuesday Night Fever sponsors: The Berkely Group, The Port of San Diego, the Big Bay, San Diego’s Waterfront, Bartell Hotels, Handlery Hotels and San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau.)
Operator-focused Education in Montréal
It’s no secret that tour operators are especially busy at the NTA Convention developing new business contacts and generating fresh product ideas. Beyond striking deals, operators have access to some great education at Convention as well.
This year’s Saturday offerings include a full track regarding ways to reach the inbound Chinese traveler, starting with a high-level look at the "Trends and Insights on the Inbound Chinese Traveler." Then, a group of members working in the Chinese market will share great ideas during "Developing Product to Attract the Inbound Chinese Traveler." The series concludes with "Using NTA’s Visit USA Center as a Marketing Tool"; a session that will focus on how NTA’s Visit USA Center in Shanghai can help you grow your business. (All these sessions will be great for suppliers and DMOs, too.)
The risk management session offered by The Berkley Group and the seminar on "Managing Your Cyber and Data Risk" both focus on the operational side of a tour operator’s business, while Catherine Heeg’s "Capitalizing on the Power of Social Media" and the newly added "Understanding the Hispanic Travel Market" panel discussion will help operators add some new marketing ideas to increase reach and bottom line.
Operators should plan to arrive in Montreal on Friday to take advantage of this jam-packed tour operator-specific education that kicks off Saturday morning at 8:15 a.m. It will be a great way to start your week of business! Visit NTAOnline.com for a full list of seminars at Convention ’10.
U.S. National Park Visitation Up During Summer Months
According to figures from the U.S. National Park Service, the park sites combined to welcome an additional 1,240,427 people this summer, as compared to June, July and August of 2009. Based on the number of recreational visits during that stretch as reported on the NPS Web site, more than 112 million people passed through the front gates at one of the 392 installments that are part of the park system.
Despite this three-month increase, data through the end of August revealed that more than 202 million people had visited a park site this year, which is 1.5 percent less than the total for the first eight months of 2009. Last year was a robust year for the parks, as more than 285 million people visited NPS sites, which marked an increase of more than 10 million over 2008 and was the highest single-year total since 2000.
The U.S. National Parks are an important tour component for many NTA tour operators, both those doing domestic business within the U.S. and for those offering international inbound packages. More than half of NTA’s 700 tour company members package the national parks. To learn more about NTA’s partnership with the U.S. National Park Service, click here.
Track and Win a Front Row Seat to Popular Convention Luncheon
Providing tracking information for NTA’s DMO members is a win-win proposition that just got better. Tour operators, if you use NTA’s Tracking/ROI system between now and Oct. 30, you’ll have a chance to win a front row seat at the hugely popular Broadway.com/groups luncheon at Convention.
Just log on to the online tracking system and submit your information. For every e-mail you send between now and Oct. 30, you’ll be entered to win one of 10 seats putting you front-and-center at this event. No waiting in line. No rush for good seats. Just send valuable tracking info to your NTA DMO colleagues and you can leisurely stroll to the front of the dining room and enjoy the show!
Have questions about how to use the tracking system? This easy How-To Guide will walk you step-by-step through the process, or e-mail Lisa Thompson at NTA with any questions..
Three Ways to Make the Most Use of LinkedIn
There are many ways to tap into LinkedIn as a useful business and marketing tool to help expand your list of contacts. To help further your B2B marketing, Priya Ramesh, head of the social media practice at CRT/tanaka and The Buzz Bin blogger, recommends doing these three things to expand your reach:
1) Share. Use this function to discuss a hot industry topic that’s on everyone’s mind, share your company’s latest announcement or simply post a question pertaining to your market to get instant feedback. This feature helps you to stay fresh in the minds of your key customers. Don’t forget to cross-promote your LinkedIn updates on Facebook and Twitter and vice versa.
2) Group engagement. Thousands of professionals representing a huge variety of interests within LinkedIn Groups give you the opportunity to stay on top of leading trends within your professional track and stay connected with your peers in the same industry.
3). LinkedIn answers. Anyone can ask a question about a particular topic to the entire LinkedIn membership. The "Answers" function is a great way to get feedback and feel the pulse of your business community in real time. Try to answer questions that specifically apply to your business and position yourself as a thought leader in your space.
Deadline Today! Your Profile Form Inserted in All Tour Operator Notebooks
If you upload your profile form today by 3 p.m. (ET) to the NTA On Demand printing site—built by corporate partner Angstrom Graphics—you can be included in the Tour Operator Profile Form Notebook for only US$1,250.
While that price doesn’t include the cost of printing your profile forms, NTA is pleased to offer a special on getting them printed through Angstrom Graphics. You can receive 500 Profile Forms for only US$265. To get started, click here and create an account. If you have questions or need help, e-mail NTA@AngstromGraphics.com. This offer is available whether your Profile Forms are included in the notebook or not.
"I found the site to be very user friendly and appreciated the detailed instructions to walk me through the entire upload process," said Jamie Heflin of the City of Geneva (Illinois).
You can visit the Angstrom Graphics booth on the Convention floor in Montréal and learn about what’s coming for the On Demand site. Supporting NTA corporate partners supports NTA. Click here for a list of all NTA corporate partners.
Donate to the Tourism Cares Silent Auction
Convention is still two months away, but Tourism Cares is offering an opportunity to get your name and product out there to NTA delegates now.
By donating to the Tourism Cares Silent Auction featuring Premium Outlets, your product or service will receive exposure on the Tourism Cares auction site, visible to all NTA delegates for the next two months. Your listing also includes your logo and link to your Web site, increasing traffic and exposure to your product or service.
Not only does donating to the auction help your organization, but it also helps NTA’s official philanthropy continue its good work. Thanks to this support, Tourism Cares can fund important programs to preserve the travel experience for future generations. By providing scholarships to students studying travel, tourism and hospitality (look for them at Convention for the Experience the Industry student program), by awarding grants to non-profits around the world and by organizing volunteer initiatives to help preserve historic places in need, Tourism Cares ensures that we never have to say "there used to be."
Premium Exhibit Space Available at Convention
While attending NTA’s Convention is an absolute must to grow your business, the best way to get the most exposure at Convention, above and beyond your productive appointments, is to become a sponsor.
By sponsoring at the US$5,000 level, you’ll receive a 10×10 exhibit booth on the NTA floor for the entire event, among many other benefits designed to make you stand out. A sponsorship complete with a booth is the best way for the hundreds of travel buyers to find you at NTA, including up to 400 tour operators and 250 travel agents attending NTA’s co-located World Religious Travel Association’s Expo.
Click here to find out how you can join this list of Convention sponsors, and contact NTA Vice President of Sales and Sponsorship Karla DiNardo at 800.862.8886, ext. 4232 or +1.859.226.4232 to reserve your sponsorship today.
Here’s a look at recent research, statistics and news that may apply to you and your business:
- Update on the Gulf Coast: See footage from the seminars and information on what else is happening, including the upcoming Chefs of the Coast event to be held at the Mississippi Coast Convention Center in Biloxi.
- Click here to see which international airports had the most delays in 2009.
- It’s Trip Advisor in reverse! A new Web site will soon be launched in the UK that will allow hotels, bed and breakfasts, agencies and campsites to blacklist unruly guests.
The links in this article are not monitored by NTA staff. Any bad links, expired pages, etc. are due to the constantly changing nature of Web sites.
Click here for the Tuesday archive.