The Journey

One beautiful aspect of road trips is that the trip can be just as exciting as the destination itself! Road trippers are empowered to make the journey their own and discover interesting places along the way – like Stuckey’s. The hospitality and tourism brand is known for their nostalgic roadside store and gas station, famous for their novelties, souvenirs and treats like their pecan log rolls. (Which I can personally attest to as being very delicious!)

In the words of Stuckey’s Corporation CEO, Stephanie Stuckey: “We’re seeing a revival of the road trip in this country.”

Listen to an interview including Stephanie Stuckey on episode 324 of our podcast from the 2023 Georgia Convention and Visitors Bureau Annual Conference.

Here are five road trip trends to keep an eye out for in 2023:

Technology plays a key role.

Conversations around emerging technologies and how we can best leverage them are becoming more commonplace. Concepts like artificial intelligence (AI) are being closely examined and creating a buzz in the travel and tourism industry. Examples of how technology is impacting travel include:

• Technology equipped in modern-day vehicles are changing how travelers navigate the roadways.
• AI-generated itineraries
• Attractions and businesses using geofencing marketing.

Outdoor experiences are popular.

Outdoor attractions entice travelers to visit a destination that’s away from the hustle and bustle of larger city areas. These are perfect for road trips, as they offer a wonderful opportunity to also explore nearby areas on the way. Exploring the outdoors can also go hand-in-hand with sustainability practices, which is also an industry trend across the board.

Small towns are the new “it” destinations.

Visitation to small towns and cities are on the rise, especially for travelers opting to discover a town’s individuality.

Sandy White, President and CEO of Alliance for Dade in Georgia, says of small towns: “Small towns are seeing a resurgence. Even though large cities are great and will always get tourists, I think people feel safe going into a smaller community because there’s less crowds.”

Sandy also suggests that visiting small towns could create a sense of nostalgia for travelers: “[Visitors] can discover the things that maybe they grew up with as children, and they can reminisce and share those things with their children.”[BL2] 

Road tripping will happen despite rising costs.

As we move into summer road trip season, budgeting will be an important task for road trip travelers. Especially since AAA predicts gas prices will hit a national average of $3 per gallon this summer.

Kat Hoyt, President and CEO of the Darien-McInstosh Chamber & Visitors Center in Georgia, says this is an important trend for destinations and marketers to be mindful of:

“With rising costs of everything, we all need to have a variety of options for our visitors – from highlighting everything that is free to also pointing out special deals and assisting [visitors] with planning their trips, to make them as affordable as possible.”

Collaborating with nearby destinations.

We love bringing multiple partners and DMOs together to craft itineraries encouraging visitors to venture into neighboring counties or cities. This type of experience is ideal for road trippers. They can explore at their own pace, knowing they’ve still got more adventure in store.

Steven Schumacher, President of the Cartersville-Bartow Convention & Visitors Bureau, explained in episode 324 how the city of Cartersville partners with the city’s four museums and the historic downtown area to showcase what the city can offer. The city even coined itself “Georgia’s Museum City.” This encourages visitors to stay for an overnight or long weekend in Cartersville.

Georgia Convention and Visitors Bureau’s travelblazers program recognizes community destination development projects exemplifying multi-partner collaboration and creative product development that demonstrates ‘tourism at the economic development table.’

I encourage you to check out those travelblazers to see how they created these exciting collaborations throughout the state of Georgia!

The post Five Road Trip Trends appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

As we’ve been transitioning from the summer high season in the northeast into the fall leaf-peeping season, we’ve also been starting to talk about planning ahead for next year. I’ve been reflecting on the challenges faced in tourism this year and looking ahead to what’s coming, much of which I learned at the Destinations International Annual Conference. It’s interesting to see that these 2023 tourism trends – with examples from global destinations – are reflected in the work we’ve been tasked with by our clients as well.

Community Relationship

At the conference this summer, it was stated many times how important the relationship is between tourism and the community. Certainly, the pandemic brought this relationship even further as residents became the only people able to support businesses during shutdowns. Yet the community has been important for more than just a few years. Local promotion of messaging and tourism activities is an ingrained habit for many destinations.

The idea of relationship with the local community is now centered around listening, receiving input, providing relevance and value. Moving into 2023, tourism marketing organizations can rely on the community for feedback, support and even direction. Representatives from Kelowna, British Columbia, said “Residents give you the social license to operate tourism in your community.” I loved hearing their example of turning their Visitor Experience Department to a Department of Community & Visitor Engagement. Their newly-constructed visitor center is a place for visitors and residents, with public restrooms, a beautiful view as well as a Love for Kelowna retail and consignment program.

This year, we’re working with the Equal Rights Heritage Center in Auburn, NY, on a campaign to engage community residents and frontline staff. The campaign seeks to foster connection with and among Auburn residents and businesses. It also will position the Center as a community hub, as it offers far more than a typical welcome center.

Workforce & Talent Attraction

In a session entitled “Talent Wars,” DCI presented their sixth edition of their national research study on relocation. They said “You are the destination brand owner. You are in charge of the perception of livability.” The research itself is fascinating, but I always love the case studies. Examples ranged from putting a cost of living calculator on a website to a neighborhood guide and even neighborhood quizzes. “Miami Begins with Me” is a sensitivity training program for frontline staff. “Stay to Stay” in Vermont brings people to lesser-known communities for a weekend to meet realtors, business owners and area professionals.

The destination being in charge of talent attraction was also the theme of a session called “The Enhanced Halo Effect.” They said that a successful tourism campaign lifts the position for the destination while also increasing awareness of positive attributes over negative. “Tourism is the brand manager for the destination’s economic development,” they shared.

My favorite example is from West Virginia, which was a case study in both sessions around talent. Their “Almost Heaven” and “Ascend” campaigns are models of how to promote a seemingly remote destination with lots of wilderness.

This is where we are seeing collaborations form between tourism and economic development that didn’t exist before. In New York’s southern tier, Tioga County formed a collaborative inter-departmental entity known as Team Tioga. The Team put together a 5-year workforce development strategy. We are in the final stretches of creating their new website for relocation, talent and business attraction.

Inclusivity & Accessibility

For several years, talk of inclusivity and accessibility has been on the rise. In 2023, tourism campaigns will have these at the forefront of more conversations, projects and campaigns.

In a session about “Cultural Diversity’s Impact on Travel Intent,” Destinations International presented some of their research. I learned that the United States is an attractive destination because of the diversity here. Most importantly, I learned about a concept called the multicultural multiplier, where the culturally curious traveler is more likely to spend more time and money in a destination, especially in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.

“The study validates that it’s important to have a cultural product in your mix. It needs to be part of the brand, discussion, experience… Include minority and diverse experiences and give them exposure to travelers so they can be found amid iconic experiences.”

Destinations International, presenting on Cultural Diversity’s Impact on Travel Intent

A session on accessible websites highlighted so much more about the world of travel and how it can be inaccessible to so many. Travelability hosted the panel of case studies and defined three mindsets when it comes to accessibility. The first are idealists, who feel they should be accessible to everyone. This is prevalent with museums. The second are compliance-based, who are reacting to lawsuits, complaints or policies. This is common with hotels. The third have a growth mindset, and are looking at what’s next. These are mainly destinations.

My big takeaways from this session are how important it is simply to provide transparency of information. I remember working on this for a groups-focused newsletter years ago. We always included where and what kind of bathrooms were available at each stop, and how accessible each location was along with parking for the motorcoach. Another great takeaway is that you need ambassadors and people with disabilities to engage and share their experiences of the destination. This could be their favorite places to go, collecting feedback on the destination and helping identify and resolve challenges.

One of many projects with accessibility and inclusivity at its center was when we worked on the capital campaign for the Autism Nature Trail. The project itself started with passionate members of the community, who found partners in the regional asset that is Letchworth State Park.

Creating the Future Now

Bit by bit, small changes add up. The trends coming up now had their place on the sidelines, and have been working their way to the limelight for awhile. These 2023 tourism trends are not earth-shattering news. But they may not be apparent when we’re working on our own. When we come together and talk about what we’re working on, we can see how much we have in common.

What else does the DMO of the Future have in store?

The post 2023 Tourism Trends appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

Hear about our evaluation on this solocast episode of Destination on the Left

Step one: Get involved.

In October 2020, I was asked to Chair the New York Tourism Industry Association’ s DEI committee. I started by seeking diverse committee members from across the NYS tourism industry. We were successful in finding 8 volunteers to join me and the committee held it’s first meeting in November 2020. During the first few meetings we shared our own personal journeys, our perspectives on DEI and what each of us wanted the committee to accomplish.

We accomplished a lot in our first year. Our dedicated committee established a mission, vision, and pillars for our committee work. We executed a survey of the NYS tourism industry to assess a baseline to measure against as we make progress. The survey also helped identify the needs of association members around DEI which informed our work plan. We organized an educational panel for the New York State Tourism Conference that was held in April 2021.

We joined Travel Unity and volunteered on the Associations working group to help create a DEI pledge for associations in the travel industry. Then the NYSTIA board adopted the pledge. The committee also crafted a statement for the NYSTIA website publicly sharing the associations purpose around DEI.  

Step two: Learn & Expand

Growth-minded is another core value at our company. So it’s no surprise that we seek out learning opportunities to help expand our understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

We started with the United Way of Greater Rochester’s 21-day racial equity challenge that provided daily emails of educational articles, links and videos designed to develop a deeper understanding of race, equity, and our collective role in improving our community. The entire team at Break the Ice participated and we spent time at weekly gatherings to reflect together. Then in the summer of 2021, our company participated in the Society of American Travel Writers implicit bias training, a two-part session designed specifically for the travel industry. We have also expanded our thinking and learning through podcasts, conference presentations and other webinars along the way.

Learnings

I was invited to participate as a panelist and a moderator for the Travel Unity Summit in Lake Placid. The Travel Unity summit provided outstanding content within a safe environment. Here are a few of the takeaways:

1. Embracing humility and vulnerability is important when addressing biases and issues related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
2. Understanding the difference between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another while sympathy is a feeling of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune. To be truly inclusive we need to have empathy for others. Being empathetic allows us to have a deeper connection with others. Empathy does not involve judgement, it allows us to acknowledge other’s feelings and to discover their perspective.  
3. Diversity without inclusion or equity can result in tokenism. In other words, if all one wants to accomplish is diversity, then one may only make a symbolic effort to give the appearance. In this case, they have not embraced diversity. We certainly have heard the term, the token (insert underrepresented group here) in the room. But when you consider efforts to be inclusive – not excluding anyone – and add dedication to being equitable – where everyone has the same chance to participate – the dynamics change.
4. Equity and equality are not the same. Equality means everything is the same and equity means everyone gets the same want. To illustrate this point, imagine a family of four; a mother, father, 13 year old son, and 8 year old daughter want to ride bikes together. If the family valued equality among all members then everyone would get the same exact bike for the ride. The bikes would be the same height, have the same seat, the same configuration, the same number of wheels. Can you imagine all four of these family members fitting on the same bike? Some would have a comfortable, easy ride and others would either struggle or not be able to ride at all because the bike didn’t fit their needs. Conversely if the family valued equity, they would make sure that everyone got the bike that best suited their needs so that everyone could have the same experience on the bike ride.

Checkout details on the upcoming 2022 Southeast Travel Unity summit.

Step three: Be intentional

One thing we identified when digging into our equitable core value is that our team was not diverse enough. We recognized that we had religious and age diversity but that is where it stopped. Since we were not hiring in 2020, we decided to look at our partners, suppliers, and sub-contractors. We wanted different perspectives, so we intentionally sought out more diverse subcontractors to add to our team. Through this process, we added more diversity to our freelance team and engaged with the freelance team on client projects. We did not reserve the freelance bench for projects aligned with their background. Instead, we integrated them into our team and brought their diverse perspectives to the projects that were already in place.

Step four: Open yourself up

New opportunities appear when you open yourself up. When we were invited to provide a proposal and pitch to Cayuga County and Auburn, NY in the Finger Lakes region for their Harriet Tubman/Equal Rights Heritage campaign, we were prepared with a diverse team that brought the right mix of perspectives to the project. The campaign was part of the plans to commemorate the 200^th birthday of Harriet Tubman in 2022. The work that the tourism office in Cayuga County is doing to change the image, culture, and beliefs of a community where advocate and human rights activist Harriet Tubman called home from 1859-1913 is amazing.

In addition, we find ourselves working with several clients that expand our worldview in big ways. Our client, Plimoth Patuxet Museums brings to life the history of Plymouth Colony and the Indigenous homeland in Massachusetts. 2021 marked the 400^th anniversary of the first thanksgiving and we helped them tell the story of the 1621 Harvest Feast. This project helped broaden our worldview of an important part of our nation’s history understanding the good and the bad. We are also engaged on a project that is currently in development and designed to honor patriotism and the history of our country. This development will be announced this year and has challenged us to contemplate the meaning of patriotic, the symbolism of the American flag, and what is possible when we are a united country.

Step five: Where focus goes, energy grows

Speaking of setting intentions, another example of expanding our perspectives and the diversity of our team came unexpectedly when we posted our latest job opening and hired our newest Associate Consultant Brittany Lynn. Brittany is our first team member that lives outside of NYS. As an Atlanta Georgia resident, Brittany gives us perspective from the U.S. southeast region. Additionally, she is our first black team member bringing us a new and diverse viewpoint. Brittany is an amazing professional and brings so much talent to our team.

Onboarding a new team member from a different state challenged our team to rethink our process on how we train and bring someone into our culture. But one thing that stood out to me was a point in Brittany’s training where I was sharing our company’s mission, vision, values and business plan. I realized it was important for Brittany to know the DEI journey that the company and I have been on for the past two years. It was important for her to understand the importance we place on DEI. It was also important to me that Brittany knew we did not hire her because she checked a box or met a diversity goal of ours. She was the best candidate that we interviewed, and it just so happened that she also brought us a more diverse viewpoint both in geography and race.

Listen to me share our DEI journey on this solocast episode of Destination on the Left

Intentions and focus achieve goals

Setting your intentions and focusing really will lead you to achieving your goals. When you set an intention and start to take action, things will start to happen. It may seem like small incremental moves at first but all of a sudden you will find yourself reflecting and those incremental moves have lead to monumental shifts and changes.

In my small company that a little over a year ago was grappling with how we fit in the DEI conversation, has found ourselves fitting in – in so many ways. What incremental steps are you making towards becoming more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

The post Becoming More Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive – Small Steps Add Up appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.

1. The value of values

A strong company culture starts with a set of values that everyone knows, understands, and believes. We’ve spent several years integrating our values into all aspects of our company. When NY on Pause started in 2020, these values became foundational for sustaining our culture in a remote environment and enabled our team to make quick and meaningful decisions to get us through the year.

Our core values: Passionate, Light-hearted, Authentic, Collaborative, Equitable, Growth-minded and Transparent. I could write an entire book citing the examples of our team using these core values throughout the last 12 months. To illustrate the power of our values, we leaned on passionate, collaborative and growth-minded when we helped our client, Travel Alliance Partners convert their live travel show into a virtual event while keeping profits, connections and the experience intact.

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2. Importance of mindset

Growth mindset is one of our core values, but the lesson goes beyond the value. We chose to approach the uncertainty and challenges that presented themselves during the past 12 months with a forward-thinking mindset instead of a fixed-mindset and a growth-mindset instead of a scarcity mindset. By making conscious choices, we were able to see many more opportunities to overcome obstacles.

Employing a growth mindset allowed us to see the opportunity to help our industry. We believe that now more than ever, tourism marketers need to have plans that are based in research and strategy. So we shared our proven 7-step process for strategic planning through a free infographic, online course and new Recovery Roadmap product. These tools help tourism marketing professionals find their greatest opportunity.

3. Kindness and helpfulness are part of our passion

A few weeks after shutdowns started happening across the world, we hosted our second virtual summit. The summit had been planned prior to the shutdown. However, once we realized the impact of the crisis on the industry we love, we decided to hold the summit open to all with no cost to attend. That started us down the path of being as helpful as we could for the industry.

We offered help in many ways over the past 12 months. We continued our weekly podcast, Destination on the Left and our weekly blogs (like this one). In addition, we developed Executive Briefings – offered for free – to any organization interested in inviting us to share. The presentations cover insights and information to help travel and tourism organizations pivot and plan for the future. We have presented to 15 organizations and continue to offer this free service. If you are interested in scheduling a presentation or would like to know more, please email Rhonda@breaktheicemedia.com.

4. Technology is empowering

Technology enabled us to seamlessly move from an in-person office to a successful remote team. Our tech stack includes Zoom, Teams, SharePoint, Slack, Teamwork Project Management and others. These technologies empower collaboration, productivity and efficiency. We know how powerful technology is for our team and we saw how it transformed the industry and helped our clients.

When the Wayne County Office of Tourism was looking for a way to promote their annual Apple Tasting tour in October 2020, we helped them create an experience that would promote touchless participation. Using an app and gamification, the tour transformed from a high-touch pen-and-paper experience to an online interactive adventure.

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Technology has been instrumental most recently for connecting destinations, attractions, and travel buyers virtually. We produced a virtual travel trade show for our client Africa’s Eden. Delegates attended this global event for 3 days of meetings, seminars and networking. The virtual event aimed to foster relationships and create opportunities for future economic impact.

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5. Collaboration enables surviving and thriving

Amazing collaborations happened across all sectors of the industry over the past 12 months. We believe that collaboration will be a critical ingredient for recovery. In November 2020, we held a study on collaboration in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. The insights from this study will help organizations achieve the best that collaboration can offer — while avoiding the pitfalls. Watch the study results webinar or check out the visualized results of the collaboration study.

It has been a year of the unexpected. This experience has taught us many lessons. We are poised and ready to help our clients and colleagues benefit from the knowledge gained over the past 12 months and stand together moving forward toward a bright future.

The post 5 Lessons Learned During the Travel Pause appeared first on Travel Alliance Partnership.