Southeast Tourism Society Fall Conference by John Dersham

Twice a year the Southeast Tourism Society (STS) holds educational conferences for their 12 state southeastern USA coverage area. This fall we were in Virginia Beach. The conference is always held in one of the 12 states participating with this organization. STS is a leader in promoting tourism domestically and internationally with its focus on bringing people to our region. They are also a leader in education and development of tourism leaders and industry professionals from Destination Marketing Organizations, like ours and from Convention and Visitor Bureaus, attractions, lodgings, museums, theme parks, state and national parks. In fact if your job is in tourism or related to tourism these twice a year seminars are extremely beneficial. In this ever changing world where technology is changing faster than ever it is critical that as an industry we know how to utilize these technologies and strategies to help us more effectively tell our story to our visitors and potential visitors.  Those who do not adapt to the changes in the market place will get left behind. Our visitors are finding out about us very differently than they did just five years ago and completely different than fifteen years ago. Marketing tourism has gone from years and years of running ads in magazines and mailing out travel guides to the computer age of websites and online travel guides to social media, smart phones and instant access to travel information as you go.  If you are in our industry and do not have a mobile website or are not actively using social media, nearly 50% of today’s consumers will ignore you. According to a recent industry forecast given to us at our fall symposium, 40% of people are now getting some or most of their information about travel on their smart phones or through social media. It is predicted that in 2014 it will cross the 50% mark. In addition to offering all the latest technologies we have to be offering them correctly and smartly in order to be the destination that wins the customer. Our spring and fall conference which is comprised of 200 plus people from all over the southeast depend on this education to bring the information home and implement it. Tourism has been a shining star in the economy during our economic downturn that started in 2008, in fact tourism has had moderate growth as an industry this whole time. Last January the federal government listed tourism as the third fastest growing industries in the US with $3.1 trillion dollars spent by tourists in the US. The industry currently employs more than 7 million people. At this seminar we got a facts and figures update and trending report from industry leader and educator Dr. Suzanne Cook, Ph.D., now consultant to US Travel and former Senior Vice President of Research for the U.S. Travel Association. She reported tourism should continue to grow and is gradually growing at a faster rate as the overall economy improves. She reported that even though the average consumer is travelling shorter distances on most of their vacations they are taking shorter weekend trips, more often. Suzanne also reported international travel is up especially from Japan, China, the UK, Germany and Brazil. Our overseas vacationers are here for longer periods than domestic vacationers and they spent more money on average. We do the same thing when we travel abroad. All of the seminars at these conferences are specific to improving our performance or updating us on the facts, figures and latest trends.

In addition to the fall and spring conferences, STS offers a one of a kind three-year Marketing College program to help educate new employees to the industry but also to update seasoned veterans. Graduates of this program are awarded the TMP (Travel Marketing Professional) diploma.

For more information about the Southeast Tourism Society and how to become a member you can visit their website at www.southeasttourism.org