BuckeyeLine

The End of an Interesting Year Brings the Beginning of Opportunity

Greetings from a post-Turkey Day Tourism Division! As I write this message, I feel so thankful for this terrific industry, our partners, friends and loved ones who support our efforts to “Share the Ohio Story” each and every day.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Ohio Hotel & Lodging Association’s Annual Conference. More than 325 colleagues from the lodging sector gathered at the Cincinnati Marriott North to share the latest trends, insights and best practices in the lodging Industry. I wish to share some forecasting data from the much-awaited presentation by Smith Travel Research (STR). According to STR, 2008 will see a 3.0 percent drop in hotel occupancy across the country, preceding a 3.5 percent decline in 2009, with a 0.6 percent drop for 2010. Average Daily Rates are expected to grow 3.4 percent nationally in 2008, 1.0 percent in 2009 and 2.1 percent in 2010. Their overall prediction for the lodging Industry is that the economic outlook for U.S. lodging will begin improving by early third quarter 2009. Interestingly, they predict the recovery to be led by the leisure sector of the marketplace. Their data confirmed our earlier statements that Ohio’s leisure travel market is performing better than many other national markets. Saturday night is actually our strongest overnight travel day of the week.

The terrific day was capped off by the annual Stars of the Industry gala where the best of the best were recognized for exceeding guest and team expectations. The dinner was emceed by Tom Keltner, Senior Advisor to Hilton Hotels Corporation, who gave an inspiring talk about our new realities and the enduring character of our Industry. Congratulations to all the award winners, the Ohio Hotel & Lodging Association and the Cincinnati Marriott North for giving our Industry a memorable day!

Also in late November, I was extremely honored to be named the 2008 “Friend of the Industry” by the Ohio Association of Convention and Visitor Bureaus (OACVB) during their annual President’s Luncheon. As I told the group during my acceptance remarks, I share this with the entire team at the Division as it is the hard work, creativity and execution of our programs that touch our partners each and every day. I am so proud to work with them! I wish to once again thank OACVB for the honor, and wish Joan Van Offeren, Executive Director of the Sandusky/Erie County CVB, a successful year as President of their Board.

While the year may be winding down in days, your Ohio Tourism Division team is still moving full speed ahead with our programs geared for 2009. As you have over the past year, stay tuned for your monthly BuckeyeLine as new opportunities will be announced within the enewsletter. 

As we wrap things up for 2008, I wish to leave you with my bad attempt to be creative and optimistically passionate about our Industry’s future (I apologize in advance to the real poets out there!):

‘Twas the end of the year and anticipation was in the air,
As your tourism team realized 2009 would soon be there.
Everyone was scurrying both to and fro’
To make sure that next year’s programs were good to go!

So sit lets take a look at all this commotion,
And see what the team is setting in motion.

Alicia Reece is busy gathering our key project teams,
And mapping out how to implement our ideas and dreams.

Joy Doty is busy planning the partnership meetings,
Be they town halls, updates, or individual greetings.

Joe Vargo is juggling both creative and the ad timeline,
While sending revision #50 to the agency for re-design.

Tammy Brown is working on public relations,
And will convince the media to talk about Ohio destinations.

Aimee Zerla is reviewing the latest layouts sent
To produce another Travel Planner and Calendar of Events.

Jessie Wagner is poring over hundreds of industry pieces,
To determine which stories make our next press releases.

Christina Grozik is jumping on the phone with L.A.,
In response to the morning’s request due same day!

Celeste Krolak is following up on her leads,
And taking care of every tour operator’s needs.

Donna Cotton is making sure our suppliers get paid,
Through a big stack of papers she must diligently wade!

Eric Herzog is deep into Web 2.0,
Figuring out where our online audiences go.

Roger Barker is adding new tweaks to the Web site,
And he will not stop until he get’s it “just right!”

Andy Doty and his team are collating and grooving,
Just to keep all those fulfillment requests moving.

And our new intern Hiram is rubbing his eyes as they’re misting,
As he just approved his 500th database listing!

And Amir is running around the office full of cheer,
Knowing that opportunities and partnerships are aplenty this coming New Year!

Have a wonderful Holiday Season with family and friends. On behalf of the Ohio Tourism Division, thank you for the partnerships in 2008. Let’s innovate and reach new successes in 2009!

Safe travels,

Amir

Approaching the End of 2008

Warm November greetings from your Tourism team here in Columbus! Your BuckeyeLine is arriving a few days later than normal this month as many of our team members have been on the road across Ohio working on key projects and partnerships on your behalf, and we wanted to share all of our latest updates this month.

First of all, it was wonderful seeing more than 250 of our colleagues at The Ohio Conference on Tourism two weeks ago in Canton. Initial feedback about the new partnership in the programming with the Ohio Travel Association’s annual conference has been extremely positive. Attendees spent a few days together hearing about and discussing ideas for the latest trends and best practices in destination marketing.

Presenters at this year’s conference really brought home the message that if we are marketing geography rather than experiences, we’re missing the boat. According to Roger Brooks, Destination Development, travelers want to know what you have that they can’t get closer to home. I believe Roger’s example was, “Sell the rapids, not the river.” Dave Serino from Gammet Interactive provided some excellent tips on Internet and email marketing, and Delos Smith shed some light on the consumer confidence index and what it means for our industry.

For anyone interested in information on how to market to women (and they are the primary travel decision makers), Fran & Bill Lytle’s presentation, “She’s Got the Power,” provided wonderful insight. See the Best Practices article in this issue of BuckeyeLine for highlights of this presentation. Please feel free to contact any of the Ohio Tourism Division staff who made presentations at the conference for information or to invite them to your community for a presentation: Amir Eylon (Ohio Tourism Division Update and Partnership Development), Alicia Reece (Advertising and Multicultural Tourism), Eric Herzog (Making the Ohio Tourism Division Web site work for You), Joe Vargo (Marketing Assistance Program), Tamara Brown (The Power of PR), and Christina Grozik (Ohio Film Office Partnerships).

I wish to extend a special thank you to the Ohio Travel Association, especially Marc McQuaid and Janet Johnson, for such a terrific new partnership. And congratulations to Gregg Mervis on completing a successful year of board leadership at OTA. We wish Scott Dring (an Ohio Tourism Division alumnus) a fantastic year at the helm of such a great organization. Despite the economy, the spirit of Ohio’s Tourism Industry is strong, and the energy felt in Canton was fantastic. A special thanks also to John Kiste and the team at the Canton/Stark County CVB for their hard work to roll out the red carpet for the industry!

A couple of days after the conference, I was off to the Travel Industry Association’s Marketing Outlook Forum. This annual event is attended by more than 500 CEO’s and Chief Marketing Officers across all industry sectors that are looking for the official forecasts for our industry, as well as any trends and insights we can capture for our marketing plans. This year’s event, as you can well imagine, was especially intense as we are looking for clues of opportunity given the economic downturn. We heard from key economists and industry leadership that the sky is definitely not falling! While business travel is a sector forecasted to feel some pain through at least mid-2009, regional leisure travel (a key for Ohio) has a lot of opportunity. Generally speaking, the lodging sector will see a continued national trend of decreasing occupancy and RevPar. The big question remains as to whether or not the sector will maintain rate integrity before things improve. Meetings and conventions groups also have their challenges in terms of decreased frequencies of attendance, but, again, regional meetings have opportunity for growth.

Leisure attractions should be focusing on regional markets in the short-term, and demonstrations of added-value will improve chances for outer-market visitation. While we have seen both areas of challenge and opportunity this past year in Ohio, I am happy to report that our challenges do not seem as large as those of longer-haul destinations who are having a hard time making up for the loss of their traditional customer base. Bottom Line: While the economic downturn continues, people will still travel! They just may travel closer to home and spend a little bit less. We will be sharing excerpts of forecasts and presentations as TIA makes them available in upcoming messages, and I am always happy to discuss what the national crystal ball has shown, so feel free to call my office.

As we begin to wind down 2008, the glorious early fall weather has helped many of our attractions, and I think the year has finished slightly better from a leisure perspective than we initially had thought. Our marketing strategies of sticking regional and promoting “Too much fun for just one day!” in an experiential way via the eyes of our visitors has begun to lead us in the right direction. If you have not done so already, please check out our 2009 Marketing Partnerships and Opportunities directory on www.DiscoverOhio.com/industry for a taste of what we have in store for 2009.

We may have challenges ahead as an industry, but the opportunities are definitely there for us to grow our leisure market share as we move into a new year! Safe travels everyone.

Warmest Regards,

Amir

Don’t miss the Ohio Conference on Tourism Oct. 22-24!

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year again – time to evaluate what worked and what didn’t from the past year’s marketing efforts and to plan and budget for next summer’s campaigns and promotions. To help you in these tasks, this year’s Ohio Conference on Tourism, “Tourism Energizes Ohio,” will provide information on new travel and marketing trends and practical methods to enhance your marketing effectiveness and stretch your marketing dollars.

Moving Ahead into 2009!

Okay—the kids are back in school and the Industry is ready for the first fall festivals, corn mazes and late summer/early fall weekend excursions! This is just a beautiful time of year in Ohio, and I am looking forward to being on the road again across the state for our next round of Town Hall meetings. This week, we began the process of rolling out the majority of our 2009 partnership opportunities and co-ops (see schedule below).  Please do not miss out on some fantastic opportunities to leverage resources with the Ohio Tourism Division to tell the world about your business!  We have seen strong RSVPs for the first few meetings. It is not too late to register for upcoming dates, so please come on out and join us for a couple of hours to find out what’s new and ask any questions that may be on your mind about ongoing Division programs.

Thinking about 2009 and Continued Changes in Ohio’s Travel Industry

Back-to-school sale signs signal August and one final big push for leisure travel before changing gears to fall. Here at the Ohio Tourism Division, it means 2009 planning is in full swing. I often use this column to either discuss changes in our Industry, or to promote upcoming Division efforts. This month, I will do both.

Halfway Through 2008 and Your Tourism Division is Sizzling!

It’s the beginning of July, and I cannot believe that 2008 is already halfway completed! I am sure that I am not the only one who is amazed by the date. As we are mid-way through the calendar year and just beginning a new fiscal year, we need to pause for a moment and reflect on our current path. Our journey so far can be summarized in five key points:

• A Successful Creation and Execution of a New Integrated Marketing Campaign (including an integrated multicultural component)
• A continued pattern of excellence in our award-winning public relations program
• Increased Industry Outreach (Eight in 2008!)
• New partnerships for Industry Members at All Levels (ex. Marketing, PR, online, educational)
• A proactive approach to turn challenges into opportunities

Not a bad first half of 2008! But there is still much more to accomplish.

The Summer of Opportunity

As Memorial Day weekend unofficially kicked off the summer leisure travel season, you have all seen the reports speculating a downturn in leisure travel due to rising fuel costs. Anecdotal tales of lower traffic volumes and news of slowdowns in bookings at traditional long-haul destinations such as Las Vegas and Florida have naturally made the entire industry nervous. Scientific consumer surveys about travel intentions vary in range from slight to moderate changes in travel planning. So, what to do, what to do?

The Beginning of Peak Travel Season

It’s here! It’s here! As the spring blossoms give way to leafy green trees and the smell of fresh cut grass is in the air, it must be time for leisure travel to pick up in Ohio!  For many Tourism Industry partners across the state, the May-October period is the biggest source of revenue generation for the year. Every May, many of us hold our breath in excited anticipation of what the season will bring in terms of visitation.

A Message from State Tourism Director Amir Eylon

Celebrating Passion in Ohio’s Tourism Industry
As the spring flowers begin to bud and the sun begins to linger just a little bit longer in the sky each evening, I can feel the anticipation building. With our peak travel season just around the corner, we are pleased to announce we have rounded out our agency roster with Singleton & Partners, Ltd., our new multicultural agency based in Cleveland. So Ohio’s tourism marketing efforts are now moving ahead at full speed on all fronts!

That being said, your Ohio Tourism Division team is planning an exciting travel season launch event, in which all of you are invited to participate. In celebration of National Tourism Week and in conjunction with our launch of the Spring/Summer marketing campaigns, we will be holding an Ohio Tourism Month event on the front steps of the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday, May 13, 2008, from 10:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. The event will be highlighted by a press conference with some familiar special guests who will help us tell the world about Ohio and what tourism means to all of us. Details about how you can participate (in addition to attending) are included in this issue of BuckeyeLine. There also are opportunities for all of you to celebrate at local happenings all over Ohio. I encourage everyone to speak out on behalf of touring and traveling Ohio during the month of May, and look forward to seeing many of you on May 13.

Besides plugging for a statewide celebration of tourism in May, I want to share with you a few personal thoughts about passion in our industry.

A Message From State Tourism Director Amir Eylon

A First Quarter Progress Report on Change and Opportunity
As I sit here writing this month’s message, it is almost 70 degrees and mostly sunny outside, a true hint of the upcoming spring season. The forecast for the rest of the week, however, has highs in the mid- to upper-30s with rain and possibly snow. This is the perfect reminder that change is a constant.

Last month, I discussed change and the opportunities that change can often bring. I was delighted to hear from industry partners sharing their own recent changes and support for our changes and our efforts to seek out new opportunities for partnership. I have also spent quite a bit of time on the road lately attending various industry and community gatherings. The initiatives I have observed range across the board – from the entrepreneurial partnerships of the new Furniture Expo in Holmes County to the educational partnerships formed from the Ohio Small Business Development Center’s recent regional Tourism Conference in North Canton. Across Ohio, I am pleased to report that the Tourism Industry’s resolve to grow through innovation is strong!