Travel and Tourism Public Relations

Dennis Deuschl

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780367537968
• eBook ISBN: 9781136352225
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

The opening chapter explains the recent growth of industry PR, and travel & tourism news coverage which today focuses on the considerable economic benefits of the industry. Additionally, it reviews the leading news media that covers the industry, the primary PR tools and audiences, and details the factors leading to PR's new prominence across the industry. It also provides informative sidebars with lists of key industry print media, top travel agencies, plus a Travel Industry Association of America case study of a post-9/11/2001 campaign to restore American confidence in travelling. It also includes a composite definition of PR, and tells how PR is a discipline distinctively different from publicity, propaganda, advertising, and marketing. The author notes how, over the past decade due to economic conditions, PR in many cases has been integrated with marketing communications and played an important role in both strategic and tactical marketing activities. Following this overview, the ensuing five chapters examine communications model specifics that are of special importance to the industry's major sectors: hotels/lodging establishments; restaurants; tourist attractions/destinations; and transportation services. Each of these sectors have their own special messages, PR tools, and audiences. For example, meeting planners and travel agents are of most importance to hotels, while travel agents are of little importance to airlines and restaurants. Also included is a chapter about what travel employers should understand about PR The chapters will be followed by appendices that will include: The top 30 U.S. Travel & Tourism Professional/Trade Associations; and the Leading U.S. Travel & Tourism Universities.

1

The Travel and Tourism Industry and PR’s Role in It

The Industry’s Scope

Travel and tourism in America has become big business. It is the business of trains, planes, and automobiles. Plus cruise ships, tourist attractions, hotels, restaurants, passenger railroads, motor coaches, tour companies, and much more. These components can be categorized into four major sectors: hotels, restaurants, transportation, and destinations/tourist attractions. Twenty years ago, the business of the industry was generally considered by the media to be “soft” or feature news. It conjured up travel poster images of children frolicking at Disney World, exotic destinations with swaying palm trees, fine dining at sunset, and bathing beauties basking in the sun on white, sandy beaches next to azure blue seas.

These images, of course, still prevail in travel and tourism brochures and advertisements. But today, the press takes the industry much more seriously. A fundamental reason for the change is that industry communicators have succeeded in convincing journalists that travel and tourism has a powerful impact on local and national economies. Stories that once were relegated to feature segments on television and in newspaper travel sections today regularly appear on “prime-time” business news segments and in the business sections of national publications because of the significant economic implications.

For example, the Washington, D.C.-based industry umbrella organization, the Travel Industry Association of America (TIA), points to these impact statistics covering both U.S. resident and international travel in 2003:

Economic Impacts Now Shape Industry News

Travel Expenditures . . . . . . . . . . . . . $554.5 billion

Travel-Generated Payroll . . . . . . . . . . $158.4 billion

Travel-Generated Tax Revenues . . . . . $94.7 billion

Trade Surplus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2.6 billion

Travel-Generated Employment . . . . . . . 7.2 million jobs

In fact, TIA states on its Web site that travel and tourism ranks as America’s third largest retail sales industry, is the nation’s largest services export industry, and is one of America’s largest employers. (See Appendix A for a list of travel and tourism professional/trade associations.)

In the Washington, D.C. area alone, travel and tourism accounts for 280,000 jobs, making it the area’s second largest employment sector, according to city government officials. This area also is the home to nearly all of the industry’s major professional and trade associations.

Although most other nations have centralized, federal (usually ministerial-level) travel and tourism agencies, government support of the industry in the United States now comes mainly from the state, regional, and local levels. Up until 1996, there was at the federal level the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration (USTTA), headed by an undersecretary within the Department of Commerce. That agency, however, was discontinued due to federal budget reductions, and replaced by the Department of Commerce International Trade Administration’s Office of Travel and Tourism Industries (OTTI). As a result, major industry promotional initiatives in the United States today are funded and spearheaded by individual industry components such as state travel authorities and city convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs); private, travel-related businesses; and industry professional associations such as TIA.

It should be noted that in 2003 Congress passed legislation creating the U.S. Travel and Tourism Promotion Advisory Board composed of top industry executives to promote travel to the United States. However, the board’s initial $50-million funding was subsequently reduced by Congress to $6 million. As of press time for this book, attempts were under way to boost this funding, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA).

In 1984, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) established a new special interest membership section named Travel and Tourism. As of 2004, that section and the newer Food and Beverage section had 683 members, equal to about 3 percent of PRSA’s total membership of 20,000. If this figure is indicative of the percentage of the number of travel and tourism practitioners in the total estimated PR population of 200,000 in the United States, there are then an estimated 6,000 travel and tourism practitioners in America. These communicators are well compensated, according to the salary survey in the Feb. 21, 2005, PR Week, which said their average salary was $93,239 for professionals in the industry approximately 12 years.

PR Tools and Special Audiences/Publics

Travel and tourism industry practitioners use all of the traditional PR tools: press releases, press kits, speeches, brochures, pamphlets, exhibits, fact sheets, tours, and special events. Some of the most frequently used industry tools include unedited video footage known as B-roll; extensive computer Web sites; major annual international trade shows such as the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Berlin, Germany, the World Travel Market (WTM) in London, England, and TIA’s Pow Wow, held in various U.S cities; familiarization or “fam” trips usually for travel writers; media marketplaces; and customer magazines such as AAA World, the airline inflights, and The Ritz-Carlton Magazine. (See Sidebar 1-1 for a list of standard PR tools and common travel and tourism PR tools.)

Sidebar 1-1

Standard PR Tools and Most Common Travel/Tourism PR Tools

Standard PR Tools:

Press Releases

Web Sites

Publications

Special Events

Open Houses

Press Conferences

Video News Releases (VNRs)

Op-Eds

Tours

800 Telephone Numbers

Public Service Announcements (PSAs)

Editorial Board Meetings

B-Roll

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Fact Sheets

Exhibits

Audiovisuals

Feature Articles

Photography

Letters to Editors

Speakers’ Bureaus

Statement Stuffers

Speeches

Radio Actualities

C D-ROMs

Most Common Travel and Tourism PR Tools:

Press Releases

Fact Sheets

Web Sites

International Trade Shows (ITB, WTM, Pow Wow, etc.)

“Fam” Trips and Press Tours

B-Roll

Custom Publications for Customers

Special Events

The industry’s premier annual special event in the United States is National Tourism Week, during the second week of each May. This was established in 1983, when the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution designating the week. In a White House ceremony the next year, President Ronald Reagan signed a Presidential Proclamation urging citizens to observe the week with “the appropriate ceremonies and activities.” Early on, USTTA and TIA took the lead in giving the event a national stage in the capital, but in 1986, industry leaders formed a permanent full-time office at TIA to sponsor the week and expand tourism awareness into year-round programs on the local level across the nation.

In addition to essential audiences such as employees, community leaders, and shareholders, many industry practitioners concentrate their PR efforts on these special publics: meeting planners, tour operators, CVBs, state/regional/local tourism offices, and travel agents. (See Sidebar 1-2, “Travel and Tourism Audiences [Publics].”)

Sidebar 1-2

Travel and Tourism Audiences (Publics)

Employees

Community leaders

Travel agents

Meeting planners

Guests

Tourists

Diners

Business travelers

Leisure travelers

Luxury travelers

Government officials

Ethnic groups

Special interest

Women

Passengers

Tour operators

Taxi drivers

Suppliers

Stockholders

Customers

Convention and visitor bureaus (CVBs)

State tourism offices

Travel writers

Business

Food writers

Critics/reviewers

Unions

Academia

The travel agent segment in recent years has undergone significant restructuring due to the proliferation of online reservation networks such as Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz. These have provided enormous competition for travel agencies—especially in the airline field where all air carriers over the past decade have dropped the 10 percent commissions they used to remit to travel agencies for bookings. These changes have led to the closing of many “mom and pop” agencies and to the consolidation of many others. Still more agencies have had to reinvent themselves by charging service fees, developing niche businesses, and expanding trip ad...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: The Travel and Tourism Industry and PR’s Role in It
• Chapter 2: PR at Hotels and Lodging Establishments
• Chapter 3: Restaurant Public Relations
• Chapter 4: Transportation Public Relations
• Chapter 5: Destination and Tourist Attraction PR
• Chapter 6: What Travel and Tourism Employers Should Understand About PR
• Appendix A: Selected Travel and Tourism Professional/Trade Associations
• Appendix B: The Travel Industry’s PR Response to 9/11
• Appendix C: Selected Travel and Tourism Print Media (with circulations over 43,000)
• Appendix D: Selected U.S. Universities Offering Hospitality and Tourism Education (and Their Concentrations)
• Appendix E: Selected Industry Research/Statistical Sources
• Appendix F: Planning Press Trips That Pay Off
• Index