Fall greetings from the Ohio Tourism Division! As the leaves start to change color for their annual brilliant fall foliage display, Ohio’s Tourism Industry shifts gears. For some of us, it means a big push of fall/holiday visitation, while for others it means catching up on to-do lists set aside during the spring/summer season. Either way, we are getting ready for 2010. In your preparations, here are a few things to put on your “must-do” list this fall:
1. Participate in at least one Ohio Tourism Marketing Partnership.
This past month, the Ohio Tourism team began hitting the road holding our annual fall Town Hall Meetings in each region of the state to roll out the fall 2009/summer 2010 Partnership Opportunities. While we still have one more meeting coming up soon in Toledo on Oct. 15 (see reminder below), we have already met with hundreds of you to share these terrific marketing partnerships, at least 80 percent of which are absolutely free to Industry members! If you cannot make a meeting, don’t worry; a PDF document of our Partnership Opportunities is available for download by clicking here. Contact any of our team with questions or feedback. Remember, these opportunities were created based on our market research and feedback regarding your marketing needs. Despite tight budgets, this plan is extremely robust with several new partnership options added to the menu on top of ongoing favorites!
2. Attend the 2009 Ohio Conference on Tourism, Oct. 21 – 23 in Cincinnati.
As announced last month, this continuing partnership between the Ohio Tourism Division and the Ohio Travel Association is bringing some of the top national experts in tourism marketing, branding, and even this new world of social media to Cincinnati for a couple days to share with you the latest in best practices, tips for doing more with less budget and maximizing your return on investment. Learn from detailed case studies and real success stories (or even from a few not-so-successful efforts), and engage in opportunities to sharpen your skills, improve your marketing performance and form new partnerships by exchanging ideas with these experts and colleagues. Understanding that every investment an organization makes these days is critical, nothing is more important than making sure your team is equipped with the best practices and skills to maximize the return on every penny you invest to drive more business to your door. I view this year’s conference as an essential tool for the Division’s efforts here and now, not just the future, and I hope many of you do the same. I guarantee attending the 2009 Ohio Conference on Tourism will yield a strong return on investment in terms of your team’s performance this coming year. Marketing staff cannot afford to miss this, and executives should plan on attending as the discussions taking place will help shape the future of our Industry’s performance!
3. Engage in discussion regarding the Division’s future public/private partnership.
Engage your Industry associations in the ongoing discussion of developing a sustainable private/public model for promoting Ohio as a tourism destination as well as supporting the needs of Ohio’s Tourism Industry (see the September 2009 BuckeyeLine). Our weekly meetings with the leadership of the Ohio Tourism Roundtable have been extremely productive, and association leaders are actively engaging their boards and members for input. A lot of progress has been made in a short period of time, but we are now entering the phase where your input is more important than ever. We continue to encourage all of you to share your thoughts and insights with your respective sector leaders or my office directly as this feedback is vital. A formal update of our progress to-date will be presented at the 2009 Ohio Conference on Tourism.
It has been a terrific start to my fall season in getting around Ohio and meeting with so many of our colleagues. Thank you again for all of your partnership and support, and especially the great levels and detail of feedback that I receive daily. I look forward to seeing many of you this month as our work continues and we gather to share, partner and succeed!
Safe travels,
Amir
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