One Registration Fee=Now 3 Shows; NTA, Edelman to Host Free Gulf Seminars
June 29, 2010
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TODAY’S ARTICLES
One Convention Registration Fee = Two Now THREE Shows
NTA, Edelman to Host Free Gulf Coast Seminars
U.S. House Agriculture Committee to Vote on Cuba Legislation
China Approved Operator List to be Submitted July 28
Tourism Cares for America Day is Sept. 10 in Washington, D.C.
Parks Canada Director General Speaks on Canada Milestones
Improve your Bottom Line Through this Free STI Webinar
12 Ways to Make your Web Content Go Viral
Maximize your Convention Experience, See a Social Media Checklist in July Courier
Industry News and Updates
One Convention Registration Fee = Two Now THREE Shows 
Your registration to Convention will get you into yet another show! All NTA members registered for Convention ’10 receive FREE admission to the United Motorcoach Association’s Expo, January 19-23, 2011, in Tampa, Florida. What a great way to meet and network with your UMA counterparts before the UMA and NTA shows come together in the first quarter of 2013. Watch your inbox for more information from Convention Chair Dawn Rueckl—coming soon.
Now, your NTA Convention registration pays for THREE business events in one: NTA’s Convention, the World Religious Travel Association’s Expo and UMA’s Expo! Below are quick links for more Convention deals:
- Transportation
- Tour Operator: Buy One, Get One
- Tour Operator rebate
- Housing reservations
- Sponsor at the US$5,000 level or higher and receive a sponsor booth
NTA, Edelman to Host Free Gulf Coast Seminars
NTA and Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm, are presenting a series of free seminars titled "Practical Skills for the Oil Spill Crisis: Managing Media Relations and Building Business through a Crisis." The seminars, open to all members of the tourism industry and others impacted by the crisis, have been scheduled for July 13 from 9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET, at the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Mississippi, and for July 14 from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. ET, at the Municipal Auditorium in Houma, Louisiana. Click here to register to attend one of these free seminars. NTA and Edelman are working to finalize a seminar in Alabama for July 27 and have scheduled a seminar for July 28 from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. ET in Pensacola, Florida. NTA will update the registration information as details are finalized.
You do not have to be an NTA member to attend, so please spread the word about these NTA-Edelman seminars. Share this information with your travel and tourism colleagues in the Gulf Coast region by posting on Facebook and Twitter. Link to the registration form by pasting this link in the feed .
U.S. House Agriculture Committee to Vote on Cuba Legislation
The U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee will hold a final discussion and vote on HR4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, Wednesday, June 30, at 2 p.m. ET. This legislation, if passed, would remove the travel ban to Cuba for all United States travelers and would modify agricultural transaction procedures to increase agriculture sales to Cuba.
NTA is optimistic that the House Agriculture Committee will move this bill successfully to the House floor for a vote. After a successful U.S.-Cuba Travel Summit in Cancun, Mexico, March 24-26, U.S. travel companies have projects waiting on the lifting of the ban. For more information on this and other NTA government relations work, contact NTA Public Affairs Advocate Steve Richer.
China Approved Operator List to be Submitted July 28
The updated China Inbound Program approved tour operator list will be submitted to the China National Tourism Administration on July 28. Before it is submitted, NTA is asking all current approved tour operators to ensure their China Inbound Program records are up-to-date. If you wish to check your record or make an update, please contact NTA at questions@NTAstaff.com or +1.859.226.4444.
Tourism Cares for America Day is Sept. 10 in Washington, D.C. 
The Tourism Cares for America Volunteer Day will be held Friday, September 10, at the National Mall and Memorial Parks in Washington, D.C. The event will bring travel industry professionals, along with their friends and families, together to volunteer time to help maintain a site of great importance to the tourism industry and the country.
Following the lead of President Obama, who signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in April of 2009 to expand the mission of national community service and recognize September 11 as a national day of service and remembrance, Tourism Cares is encouraging tourism industry professionals and their friends and family to visit Washington, D.C., to perform a needed service at the U.S. capital. Register now on the Tourism Cares Web site, www.tourismcares.org/volunteer-day.
Parks Canada Director General Speaks on Canada Milestones 
Parks Canada is celebrating two important milestones-the 125th anniversary of the creation of Canada’s first national park (Banff National Park, Alberta) in 2010 and the 100th anniversary of the Dominion Parks Services (now Parks Canada), the first national park service in the world, in 2011. Andrew Campbell, Parks Canada’s director general responsible for external relations and visitor experiences, took a couple minutes to talk to Doug Rentz, managing editor of NTA’s Courier magazine, about some of the events, programs and experiences the organization has planned to commemorate these events. Click here to see a full listing of NTA podcasts.
Improve your Bottom Line Through this Free STI Webinar 
Sustainable Travel International, an NTA strategic partner, will show you how to set your business apart, increase resource efficiencies and improve your bottom line through a free Webinar, June 29 at 11 a.m. ET. Focusing on trends and benefits of tourism certification as an education, measurement and management tool, this Webinar will introduce the principles and practices of sustainable tourism, consider the implications of global accreditation of sustainability and build the business case for certification. You also will be introduced to related tools that can help you to achieve your sustainability goals, including STI’s Sustainable Tourism Eco-certification Program. Click here to sign-up for the free Webinar.
12 Ways to Make your Web Content Go Viral
Read these 12 tips on how to get your information out from social media wizard and author of "The Social Media Marketing Book," Dan Zarrella.
1. Seed your campaign. Grow your Twitter followers, e-mail lists and Facebook friends.
2. Find and target the digital influencers who can pass your ideas on to their followers.
3. Get bigger and louder. The unfortunate truth is that bigger online ads get more click-throughs.
4. Personalize. Just like you’re attuned to hear your name even in a noisy room, people respond to personalized messages in a crowded social media environment.
5. Avoid the crowds. Click-through rates rise later in the day and on the weekends, even though traffic is lower on Twitter and Facebook during those times. That’s because there are fewer links competing for people’s attention.
6. Pass on value to your audience. Give your followers the chance to pass on information that makes them more valuable to their friends.
7. Take advantage of information voids. If there’s a scarcity of information on a topic, fill the void. But don’t let an information void form around your brand.
8. Talk like a fifth grader. Use short words when sharing content on social media. The higher the reading level, the less people share your content.
9. Break up your content. No one likes reading huge blocks of text. Create bulleted lists.
10. Put out a call for action. "Asking people to retweet works," Zarrella said. "Don’t do it all the time. But it does work."
11. Maintain novelty. Package old content in new ways, or explain new content in familiar ways.
Maximize your Convention Experience, See a Social Media Checklist in July Courier
There is a lot packed into the pages of the July issue of Courier. With the Convention ’10 early-bird registration deadline coming up July 9, make sure to check out the article from Rhode Island Tourism’s Katrina White on how she maximizes her Convention experience (page 12). The business section, beginning on page 10, includes a social media checklist from one of this year’s Convention speakers, Catherine Heeg. You can read about the recent Tourism Cares event in San Francisco and see recaps from Bavaria Tourism’s Susan Krulic from Oberammergau’s opening night performance and the NTA Product Development Trip to Slovakia. Destination stories provide insights on new product options in Southern California; Classic New England; Germany, Switzerland and Austria; Kentucky; Ohio; Tennessee; West Virginia, and the features stories cover faith-based travel and zoos and aquariums.
Advertisers in this issue:
Bank of America—The Berkely Group (TPP)—Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center—Mt. Washington Railway—National Aquarium in Baltimore—Quechan Casino Resort—USS Midway—Yankee Candle
Upcoming Deadlines:
October Issue—Ad Space: July 28; Editorial: July 6; Annual Convention Issue; Great Plains (Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota and South Dakota); London and Paris; Connecticut; Maine; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; Rohde Island; Vermont.
November Issue—Ad Space: August 25; Editorial: August 2; Restaurants; Shopping; America’s Historic East (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington D.C.); San Francisco Bay Area; Italy; Delaware; New Brunswick; Newfoundland and Labrador; Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island; New Jersey; New York; Quebec.
December Issue—Ad Space: Sept 29; Editorial: Sept 7; 2010 Annual Convention Coverage; Gay and Lesbian Travel; The Rockies (Alberta, British Columbia, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming); Smoky Mountains (Ashville, Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge); Latin America; Alabama; Louisiana, Mississippi.
Please click here to view the 2010 Editorial Calendar online.
Here’s a look at recent research, statistics and news that may apply to you and your business:
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Fires in Flagstaff, Arizona are 65 percent contained and Bonito Campground has reopened. The O’Leary Group site, also near Sunset Crater, will be reopening on July 1.
- Receive updated border wait-times for the Canada/United States border by using Twitter.
- Officials from the United States and Switzerland have entered into a new Open Skies agreement.
- for entrepreneurs.
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.