Travel Exchange Registration Opens One Month from Today! | Update on Ann Thomas Memorial Fund
March 13, 2012
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TODAY’S ARTICLES
Travel Exchange Registration Opens One Month from Today!
Update on Ann Thomas Memorial Fund
Coming to Contact? Meet You at the Zoo!
5 Ways to Use Facebook for B2B Marketing
Student Trip Planner Includes 300-plus School Group Tour Options
Free Webinar Offers China Market Insights
Check Out Courier on Facebook
Members See Rebound in Travel to Japan One Year after Quake
What Do Nearly 80 Percent of NTA Tour Operators Rely On?
Tourism Cares Announces Sites Receiving Grants
Industry News and Updates
Travel Exchange Registration Opens One Month from Today!
Travel Exchange registration opens Tuesday, April 10, at noon. Have you marked your calendar?
April 10 is just four weeks away now—watch your mail and e-mail for more details or visit the Web site. Registration rates are below:
Buyers
Early Bird rate (until Aug. 24): $220
Regular registration rate (after Aug. 24): $330 
(Buyers are eligible for a $650 rebate.)
Sellers
Tour Suppliers/DMOs
Early Bird rate (until Aug. 24): $1,200
Regular registration rate (after Aug. 24): $1,400
Associates: $2,500 (includes a booth)
Educators: $220
Update on Ann Thomas Memorial Fund
In last week’s Tuesday, we informed you about former NTA Chairman Ann Thomas, who passed away after battling cancer. This week we received updated information regarding the memorial fund established in Ann’s name: Checks should be made out to "Empowered Lives Through the Cancer Journey Foundation" with a note on the memo line for the Ann Thomas Memorial Fund.
The mailing address:
Sierra Nevada Cancer Center
1460 S. Curry Street, Ste. 100
Carson City, NV 89703
For details about the March 31 services in Carson City, Nevada, click here.
Coming to Contact? Meet You at the Zoo!
Contact 2012, NTA’s tour operator-exclusive event, Aug. 16–18, in San Diego, California, is shaping up to be the must-attend event for business-savvy operators. Here are just a few of the highlights so far:
Kelly McDonald, one of the highest-rated speakers at Convention ’11, will join us at Contact to present new material on social media and generational marketing. Cathleen Johnson from Edelman will be sharing effective branding techniques. And that’s just the marketing track.
San Diego has rolled up their sleeves to roll out the red carpet with an Icebreaker at the San Diego Zoo and a farewell party at SeaWorld San Diego.
The pre- and post-Contact Fam tours and sightseeing tours are set. The hotel has your room ready. People are registering. Are you coming? If you’re ready to register, click here now.
See you there!
[Tour suppliers and DMOs: Click here to see how to attend Contact.]
5 Ways to Use Facebook for B2B Marketing
Facebook might not seem like an obvious path for selling your product to other 
businesses. After all, the social site is built around person-to-person relationships, right?
But so is B2B marketing, according to Ann Handley on Entrepreneur.com. She outlines five ways to use Facebook to reach out to other businesses—and the people within them:
- You’ll need to land a "like" from potential leads before you can expect to engage further with them. Your Facebook page allows you to build awareness and trust.
- After you’ve got the like, turn it into a lead by regularly offering free content and useful links.
- Create a contest to attract fans, but pick a prize that makes sense for the B2B audience you’re trying to attract. (And be sure to read the Facebook fine print regarding promotions.)
- Learn how to make the most of EdgeRank, the algorithm Facebook uses to determine what appears in news feeds. Tips include inviting interaction, posting at different times (and on weekends) and limiting posts to one or two per day.
- Integrate Facebook-sharing icons onto your company’s Web site landing page to increase engagement with potential customers.
For more details, see the full story.
Student Trip Planner Includes 300-plus School Group Tour Options
The 2012–13 edition of the NTA Trip Planner for Student Travel showcases more than 300 great experiences and places that await school groups that go on the road
for education beyond the classroom. The publication includes feature stories on five areas of school curriculum: history, science, cultural studies, the arts-and even recess. Each article provides details on tour programs offered by NTA members that are tailored specifically for school groups and meet state and national standards.
In the "I Want to Go There" section, educators can read about what awaits their groups at 21 top student destinations around the globe. The publication also includes the annual Tour Operator Directory and "Working with a Tour Operator vs. Doing it Yourself," a Q&A with a pair of NTA members.
The publication for student travel is one of two titles in the NTA Trip Planner series, which also includes an issue that focuses on group leaders. Both magazines help educate these two types of travel buyers about the diverse products offered by NTA’s tour operator, tour supplier and DMO members.
For more information on advertising in the NTA Trip Planners, e-mail NTA Services, call +1.859.264.6559 or click here.
Free Webinar Offers China Market Insights
Join Scott Johnson of Travel Market Insights and Dr. Robert Li of University of South Carolina’s School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Management as they examine the data behind the growing market for Chinese travelers visiting the United States. The free Webinar, "China Market Insights," is set for March 22 at 2 p.m. ET.
Johnson and Li will present custom research gathered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, and the China Travel Trade Barometer and more. If you missed this session at Convention in Las Vegas, or if you would like another look the data (with a few updates), tune in to the hour-long Webinar. Just click here to register.
Courier magazine now has a Facebook page. This is where you can access digital issues of Courier and NTA Trip Planners, discuss articles or add insights of your own. It’s also where we can share updates along with information, interview snippets and photos that we just couldn’t fit in the printed version.
Simply click the link and "like" our page to be a part of this new social community.
Members See Rebound in Travel to Japan One Year after Quake
Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan and disrupted travel in the island nation. (During those frantic days following the disaster, Tuesday provided a firsthand account of the situation from Michio Endo, a friend of NTA.)
Tourism into Japan took an understandable dip, but recovery has been significant. The Japan National Tourism Organization, an NTA member, reports the number of visitors to Japan in April 2011 was down 60 percent from the previous year, but by January 2012, visitor numbers had recovered.
An NTA tour operator has a similar report. "While the number of Americans visiting Japan certainly decreased, Americans seem to be the first nationality to be returning to Japan," said Mike Roberts, owner of Samurai Tours. "For all of our spring tours, we are up 11 percent over 2011."
Those figures don’t include the increase in individual travel that Roberts is selling. "We are getting so many requests for FIT packages now, we added another person in our Japan office to handle the requests from international customers so that our Denver office has the time to respond to our American customers."
Click here for images and more reports from JNTO.
What Do Nearly 80 Percent of NTA Tour Operators Rely On?
NTA’s annual Membership Directory! With contact information for all NTA members
(plus specifics on membership benefits), the annual NTA Membership Directory stays on desks all year as a critical, day-to-day business resource for members.
As an NTA member, your company will automatically be listed in this directory, but how can you stand out on the page? Enhance your listing by including your logo, or you can book a display ad to stand out and get noticed. The impact is obvious!
Interested in learning more? Deadline to reserve space is April 2, 2012, so e-mail NTA Services or call 859.264.6559 today!
Tourism Cares Announces Sites Receiving Grants
Tourism Cares is pleased to announce the latest recipients of its Worldwide Grants program, part of the organization’s ongoing mission to preserve the travel experience for future generations. A Tourism Cares Blue Ribbon Panel, composed of U.S. experts in the fields of preservation and tourism, made up the selection committee.
Six nonprofit organizations for tourism-related sites received $10,000 grants. Combined with dollar-for-dollar matching funds, the grant program payout totals $120,000. Collette Vacations and Trip Mate made generous contributions to the grantees. Here are the six recipients:
- American River Conservancy in Coloma, California
- General Douglas MacArthur Foundation in Norfolk, Virginia
- Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona
- Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida
- Maine Maritime Museum in Bath, Maine
- USS Constitution Museum in Boston, Massachusetts
For more details on the sites and the applications of Worldwide Grant funds, click here.
To date, Tourism Cares has awarded funding to 178 organizations in 31 countries and 42 states. Combined with matching funds, total awards surpass $2 million. However, the need is great. In 2011, Tourism Cares received Worldwide Grant requests for $1.5 million that we could not fulfill. We thank our current partners, who help make the program possible, and invite you to join in support of this program. If interested, please contact Alyssa O’Driscoll, Tourism Cares development manager.
And if you know of a cultural, historic or natural tourism-related site seeking grant funding, direct them to the Tourism Cares Worldwide Grant Program home page. For questions, please e-mail grants@tourismcares.org.
- To head off a potential work stoppage, the Canadian government introduced a bill that suspends the right of Air Canada pilots and baggage handlers to strike during current collective bargaining talks.
- "Trail View," a virtual hiking experience, introduces tech-savvy explorers to U.S. national parks via 300-plus filmed miles of trails in the Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains and Yellowstone national parks. It’s the perfect tool to introduce several U.S. national parks to prospective visitors who have never seen these vistas.
- As wages and benefits are increasing in China, employers are facing a shortage of labor and are more focused on retaining workers. The changing labor market could impact non-Chinese DMOs and suppliers who hire representatives in China.
- The number of U.S. workers employed directly in the travel industry rose by 8,000 in February to 7.6 million, the 11th monthly increase for the travel industry in the past year.
Click here for the Tuesday archive.
