You’re Invited to Party with Us! | Main Event in DC | 6 Ways to Appear Media-savvy
November 27, 2012
Interested in advertising in Tuesday? Email Karla DiNardo.
TODAY’S ARTICLES
You’re Invited to Party with Us!
NTA’s Main Event in DC
Tour Operators Have an Extra Week to Join PDT
6 Ways to (at least) Appear Media-savvy
Detailed Data for Canada-to-U.S. Travel
Reach Buyers—all 1,000 of them—at Travel Exchange
U.S. Travel Overseas Rises 7 Percent in 2012
Tourism Cares Gathers Volunteers for America’s Hometown
Industry News and Updates
You’re Invited to Party with Us!
Come to Travel Exchange, Jan. 20–24, 2013 in Orlando, to get a year’s worth of networking in a single week! Travel Exchange is five days full of focused buying and selling (appointment scheduling is open now!), with plenty of great food and drink, music, dancing, games and rides mixed in. Here’s we’ve got planned:
Sunday, Jan. 20
- Welcome Reception/Icebreaker. Get a sneak peak of the Space Shuttle Atlantis Exhibit, explore the eight vintage rockets in the Rocket Garden and watch live theater and multimedia presentations during your time at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Monday, Jan. 21
- Broadway Luncheon. This hour-long cabaret performance will feature performances from "Annie," "Chaplin," Rodgers + Hammerstein’s "Cinderella," "Kinky Boots," "Motown: The Musical," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," Nice Work if You Can Get It," "Once," and "Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark."
- Wine & Cheese Reception/UMA Expo Sneak Preview at 4:30 p.m. Enjoy wine and cheese on the NTA floor and see the UMA floor for the first time, and be sure to join the NTA Young Professionals group for a meetup!
- Dine Around Night. Meet up with colleagues and friends to experience the restaurant offerings of Orlando!
Tuesday, Jan. 22
- 5K Fun(d) Run. Pull on your tennies and run, jog or walk with your peers to support NTA’s government advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C.!
- Awards Reception, Dinner, Dance, Cigars and Cordials. A mix of new traditions and old. Come dressed in your best for a night of conversation, cordials, laughter, great food, a Flip-Flop fund-raiser for Tourism Cares, and a dance move or two to the favorite Florida band Wonderama!
Wednesday, Jan. 23
- Party at NASCAR Sports Grille. Race on over to the Nascar Sports Grille for food, games and dancing. In other words, just plain fun!
- Tourism Rocks at the Hard Rock Cafe Orlando. A favorite party each year, Tourism Rocks is a rockin’ great time! Be sure to get your tickets!
Thursday, Jan. 24
- New York Street Party at Universal. A fitting close to wonderful week, you’ll enter the party via red carpet to enjoy fine cuisine, thrilling attractions and an interactive DJ. It’s a great way to bid farewell to your friends and Travel Exchange 2013!
Who else is coming to the party? See the full list of registrants here!
Want to join in on all the fun? Register for Travel Exchange now!
By now you’ve likely learned about Destination: Capitol Hill, scheduled for April 10 and 11. What you might have missed is that DCH is our association’s main advocacy event in Washington, D.C. Steve Richer, NTA public affairs advocate, explains:
"Destination: Capitol Hill is built in part on the foundation of NTA’s Grassroots Congressional Travel Summit," Richer said. "We are excited to be in an expanded partnership with U.S. Travel and our previous partners, the Destination Marketing International Association and the Southeast Tourism Society, to present the definitive event for advocacy of the tourism sector."
Richer added that because the event will follow a meeting of NTA leadership (board of directors and committees) and precede a U.S. Travel Association board meeting, dozens of key travel sector leaders are guaranteed to be in Washington at that time. "We anticipate close to 400 participants gathering in Washington to interact with the leaders of our country to strengthen the contributions of tourism to the United States economy," he said. "I encourage all NTA members to attend."
We will provide more details of the event in the weeks to come, but you can visit this page on the U.S. Travel Association website to get information.
Tour Operators Have an Extra Week to Join PDT
The deadline for joining NTA’s product development trip to the Holy Land, Feb. 10-22, has been extended to Dec. 13. Tour operators considering the trip to Israel and Jordan are no doubt monitoring the news for developments in Gaza. According to Stas Misezhnikov, Israel’s tourism minister, some 100,000 tourists continued their travels in Israel last week, and no airline flights were canceled. Read his letter here.
To learn more about NTA’s first PDT focused on faith-based travel, follow these links:
Last week’s Tuesday article has comments from PDT participant Paul Larsen and a word about travel safety from NTA President Lisa Simon.
6 Ways to (at least) Appear Media-savvy
It’s possible to expand your presence on social media sites even if you’re not a 
techie or a teen-ager, according to Sarah Johnson, writing for Intuit Small Business Blog.
If you have set up accounts for Facebook and Twitter but fail to stay active with them, you’re missing chance after chance to interact with customers, both current and potential. Johnson lists six ways to at least appear to be on top of technology and social media even if you’re not:
- Respond to every legitimate comment you receive. Being interactive should be your top priority for social media.
- Make sure your posts are relevant and insightful, and don’t try to be the source for breaking news.
- To keep your page fresh, post something at least twice a week.
- Maximize your presence by scheduling posts in advance and linking your social media accounts together.
- Find organizations (local or national) that will share your information.
- And if all else fails, hire an intern.
For details on each suggestion, go to the article.
Bonus tip: Save yourself the trouble of posting onto your Facebook wall the canned legalese that many are invoking to protect privacy rights. When you opened your Facebook account, you accepted Facebook’s legal terms and privacy policy, and no "legal notice" to your wall will change that. For thorough coverage of this issue, read the articles on Snopes.com and Mashable.com. (We share this information because NTA maintains a Facebook page that we encourage you to use with full faith and confidence.)
Detailed Data for Canada-to-U.S. Travel
Last year saw a significant increase of Canadian visitors to the United States: up nearly 7 percent for overnight travel and up 15 percent for all travel. And those visitors spent a record-breaking US$24 billion during 2011.
The U.S. Office of Travel and Tourism Industries has released detailed data for Canadian travel into the United States, including visitors’ age and residence, along with their trips’ length, purpose and activities. For each category, visitor volume is reported for nine U.S. regions and the 21 states that hosted a minimum number of visitors.
Here are a few interesting points:
- Seven of nine regions, and 19 of 21 states, had visitor increases in 2011.
- The top destination states were New York, Florida, Washington, Michigan, Nevada and California.
- Florida accounted for 16 percent of visitors, but 34 percent of visitor nights.
- Ontario is the leading province of origin, producing 43 percent of all visitors.
To see all the 2011 data, plus data from 2004 to 2010, follow this link.
Reach Buyers—all 1,000 of them—at Travel Exchange
NTA has great marketing opportunities to help you reach the anticipated 1,000 buyers—both NTA tour operators and UMA motorcoach operators—attending Travel Exchange in Orlando this January. Here’s how to do it:
- Profile Form Notebook: Guarantee that your profile is in the hands of every operator at Travel Exchange by pre-inserting your profile in the Profile Form Notebook.
- Travel Exchange Daily newsletter: Our on-site daily newsletter features updates, photos and need-to-know information.
- Travel Exchange Program: Given to all delegates on site, this handy guide includes the convention schedule, seminar descriptions and a delegate registry of all attendees—for use at Travel Exchange and beyond.
- Travel Exchange Map & Schedule: This conveniently sized schedule and map of the show floor will be given to all Travel Exchange delegates on site.
The deadline to be included in these Travel Exchange publications is Tuesday, Dec. 4, so contact us right away at +1.859.264.6559, or you can email NTA Services for more information.
Sponsoring at Travel Exchange is another great way to stand out—with a booth on
the show floor for the entire event. Sponsoring puts your name above the rest and gives you a presence in addition to your appointments, networking and social activities! For additional sponsorship information, contact Karla DiNardo today by email or phone (+1.859.264.6556).
U.S. Travel Overseas Rises 7 Percent in 2012
Through the first eight months of 2012, U.S. travel to overseas markets included 20 million trips. Europe and the Caribbean attracted the most travelers, 7.9 million and 4.7 million, respectively, while the Middle East and Central America recorded the largest increases from last year, 14 percent and 12 percent.
At 22.2 million, U.S. travel to other North American markets was higher than to overseas destinations, but that number was flat compared to 2011. Mexico attracted 13.7 visitors (down 2 percent) and Canada drew 8.5 million visitors (up 3 percent).
Here are the top five destinations from January to August 2012, with market share:
- Mexico, 32 percent
- Canada, 20 percent
- Europe, 19 percent
- Caribbean, 11 percent
- Asia, 7 percent
For more information, see the Office of Travel & Tourism Industries report.
Tourism Cares Gathers Volunteers for America’s Hometown
Mark your 2013 calendars: Tourism Cares, NTA’s official philanthropy, has announced Plimoth Plantation in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as the site of the fall volunteer restoration on Sept. 26 and 27.
Plymouth is where Colonial English Pilgrims landed nearly 400 years ago, and
Plimoth Plantation is a living museum dedicated to telling the history of Plymouth Colony from the perspective of both the Pilgrims and the native Wampanoag people. Plimoth Plantation is visited by 350,000 tourists and more than 100,000 students every year. Its small maintenance staff takes care of a 130-acre campus that includes a visitor center, Wampanoag Homesite, 17th century English Village, Mayflower II, a craft center and three barns with rare-breed farm animals.
The Plimoth Plantation staff is preparing a number of work projects for Tourism Cares volunteers, including rebuilding the English Village palisade, landscaping and clearing brush at the Wampanoag Homesite, painting at the Visitor Center and preparing Mayflower II for the winter season. The important work completed by volunteers will allow the museum’s staff to focus on projects focused on the in 2020 celebration recognizing the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock.
"We are very grateful for the support of Tourism Cares," said Plimoth Plantation’s Executive Director Ellie Donovan. "Plimoth Plantation is not only one of the nation’s foremost living history museums, but it’s also a vibrant civic space where people of all ages discover the past, experience the present and help to build the future."
Registration for the Plimoth Plantation Tourism Cares project will open in early December, and sponsorships are now available. For more information, visit www.TourismCares.org/volunteer.
- Florida saw nearly 22 million visitors during the third quarter of 2012, a 3.5 percent increase compared to the same period last year. From July to September, the state experienced a 5.5 percent increase in overseas visitors and a 4 percent rise in Canadian travelers.
- Free Wi-Fi beat out free transportation and in-room coffee and tea as the favorite hotel freebie, in a study conducted by a Chicago airport-shuttle company.
- U.S. gas prices are 13 cents less than a month ago but 12 cents higher than a year ago. States with the lowest price are Missouri ($3.14), Oklahoma and Texas (both $3.16).
- Estate planning covers a variety of assets, and, depending on the carrier, can include frequent-flier miles.
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