Summer Tourism Update by John Dersham

Last week I attended the annual retreat for the Alabama Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus (AACVB). AACVB consists of organizations throughout the state that are in the Destination Marketing business, just like DeKalb Tourism.
At this meeting we always have guest speakers that are experts in various parts of the destination marketing business. This year we had seminars on the latest products and services for mobile applications and internet marketing. This is an ever changing realm and our industry has to stay on the cutting edge of this technology. It is imperative that we stay up with the current trends so we know the way our potential visitors get their information. We had seminars dealing with budgets and our current political climate. The trend is to do more with less money. Many budgets have been cut. This increases the need to work smart and utilize free or low cost internet marketing as much as possible, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogging etc. Another seminar concerned itself with current trends in advertising, what works, what does not and what has cooled off and what is hot. The bottom line is tourism is like all other industries we have to stay up with the current trends that work or get outdated and loose market share.
Much of this years meeting dealt with the current state of tourism in Alabama, how are we doing, and what are our challenges. Most CVB’s had an opportunity to talk about their results and their marketing plans for this year. Some of the challenges for all of us are the sluggish economy, a tendency to hold on to money, high gas prices and severe weather conditions. In north Alabama and in Tuscaloosa the April 27th tornados have negatively impacted tourism. The consumer thought is much like last years oil spill in the gulf. The perception is that our area has been ruined by the tornados and we will not be a good place to visit this summer. We are currently running a TV, radio and press campaign telling our potential travelers that DeKalb County and all our tourist attractions are open and looking good...
Overall there is a downward trend in tourism for most CVB’s this year. 2010 was a greatly improved year over the prior several but this year is tending to look more like 2008 and 2009 for most of us.
DeKalb Tourism is dedicated to trying to maximize our money to spend as much of it as possible on advertising. It is critical that we track the results from each type of advertising we do. This way we know what works and what does not and how much it costs for each form of advertising. DeKalb Tourism will keep doing all we can to bring those very important tourism revenues into our area. Tourism is big business and it is especially large here when considering the small size of our population.