Seminar provides wake-up call to tourism officials

Everyone knows Oak Ridge, Tenn., is where the atomic bomb was born, but for years town officials were at pains to sweep that information under the rug.

They focused on the community”™s progressiveness, nice quality of life, friendliness ””anything except the bomb. In fact, the story about how the town sprung up overnight after President Franklin Roosevelt committed the United States to developing the bomb during World War II is fascinating, involving 75,000 people being instantly and mysteriously relocated to the sleepy crossroads, which was blessed with abundant water, a necessary ingredient for bomb making.

When the tourism department realized the bomb was what it should be promoting, it changed its marketing tactics and produced a brochure titled “World War II”™s Secret City,” as well as an informative Web site. The number of visitors to the town has since skyrocketed, with many people driving from Atlanta, 90 minutes away.

The point, said Judy Randall, a renowned travel industry marketer and speaker who told the story of Oak Ridge at a daylong seminar she presented on tourism trends and effective travel marketing at Mohonk Mountain House, is that towns shouldn”™t hide what they are. “In travel and tourism, you always make lemonade out of lemons.”

The event, which was held April 17, attracted a large audience of tourism officials, hotel owners and others involved in the travel industry who paid a $100 fee to attend. It was hosted by the New Paltz Regional Chamber of Commerce and various sponsors, including Mohonk Mountain House and Kempner Corp.

The North Carolina native, who heads the marketing firm Randall Travel Marketing, approached the topic with dry wit, homespun wisdom and withering directness, unhesitantly pronouncing certain tourism brochures flashed on the screen in her presentation as dire failures. The trick with brochures, she said, is to hook the audience with a compelling title in the upper third of the cover, which will be displayed in the racks at visitor centers. “Breward and Transylvania Counties” doesn”™t work; “Waterfalls,” which was identified as the prime attraction for visitors in the two North Carolina counties, does.

Tourism officials need to let go of their assumptions and find out from visitors ”” their customers ”” what attracts them to the area. Once they”™ve come up with a concept, they need to test it, which can be as simple as hanging out at a visitors center and watching how people react to their brochure. If it works, it”™s OK to keep the theme forever; think “I love New York” and “Virginia is for lovers.” If it doesn”™t, they should try something else.

 

The key is to discover what”™s unique about a destination and promote it. Travelers love nothing better than to go to a place that offers something real that”™s different from anyplace else. Take Macon County, Ga.; it stumbled in its tourism promotion efforts until it discovered that people around the world associate the place with Otis Redding, Little Richard, the Allman Brothers and its many other home-grown musical greats. Randall said tourism officials got Little Richard”™s permission to use his image on brochures and even to record the message that”™s played when people call up the 800 tourism number and are put on hold. She added that because he loves his home county, he did it for free.

Besides giving participants tips on how to create effective Web sites, brochures and other marketing tools, Randall covered branding and marketing, the importance of tourism to the community and major travel and tourism trends. The response of participants was enthusiastic ”” if tinged with chagrin about the much better job the Hudson Valley could do in its tourism promotion.

The problem, said attendee Susan Zimet, an Ulster County legislator who heads the legislature”™s arts, tourism and community relations committee, is lack of funds to support tourism promotion efforts. Money is earmarked toward more pressing needs, such as social services and highways and bridges. Tourism, which Randall referred to as a “stealth industry,” is considered discretionary, Zimet said. Another problem is that powerful teachers and health-care workers unions, along with other organized labor groups, affect where the county money is channeled. “There is no 500-pound gorilla for tourism,” she said. “It doesn”™t get the attention it deserves.”

One way to solve the problem, Zimet added, was to consider forming a union of tourism workers. Rick Remsnyder, director of Ulster County Tourism, who was also attending the event, suggested surveying hoteliers, bed and breakfast owners, and the owners of various attractions to get occupancy rates and other data. This would be useful in demonstrating tourism”™s economic impact to legislators, as well as provide valuable information on trends, which would help focus promotion efforts.

He said his organization is building up its Web site in an effort to attract more visitors. Ulster County Tourism is part of a 10-county coalition that puts out a regional guide on the Hudson Valley. But much more could be done. Another problem: many of the organizations involved with tourism promotion, including the chambers of commerce, county tourism offices and county development corporations, are involved in turf wars. “One goal is to get everyone to work together. Let”™s stop competing with each other,” Zimet said.