A Saddam Hussein-regime building along the water.

It might seem incredulous but in Iraq there is an actual working tourism board and even more unbelievable, they want you to visit. The BBC reports that the head of the Iraqi tourism board has attended the World Travel Market in London to promote the country as a new vacation destination.

"Tourism will help regenerate Iraq," says the tourist board chairman, Hammoud al-Yaqoubi. "We want to prove that Iraq still exists and maybe we can change people's minds about it."

In fact, there is one British company, Hinterland Travel, that has begun offering tours of Iraq in March and has at least five more planned through 2010. The company had to stop around 2003 because of escalating violence but today a nine-day tour in Iraq will cost you £1,600 per person.]]> juliana 2009-11-12T17:29:26-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/10/155259/56

We certainly thought that Forest County's "Become Our Facebook Friend" campaign was kind of cute. The local tourism board's idea was very Web 2.0: get people invested in the product, have them activate their social network, and hope the campaign gets traction. New Hampshire's approach to Facebook-driven advertising is a little more old fashioned. Their Visit NH Facebook Page makes that most basic of all tourism appeals: "come to our page, get discounts."

It's not the most innovative approach to getting a following, but it's apparently the more effective one. After almost a year, the Forest County page—pushing a similar kind of "come be rustic" message—has 917 friends. Just a couple months into the New Hampshire campaign they're already close to 2,000 fans. Here are some more details on how they get the word out about the Facebook-related deals:]]> Omri 2009-11-10T16:29:24-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/2/9285/14689

It's been a season of rebranding throughout Nevada, as city and tourism board officials have hired PR companies to create new slogans for them and their municipalities. Or more accurately, it's been a season of attempted rebranding, as the contracted firms came back with one hilariously bad proposal after another. The city of Sparks and the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority both had to reject new slogans after $100,000 efforts. Even Las Vegas was having problems, until they finally decided to dump their new slogans and go back to to "What Happens Here Stays Here."

Naturally the tourism boards and ad firms have undertaken a full review of these failures. They're taking fresh looks at their selection criteria, their talent evaluations, and their overall approach to PR. By which we mean they're blaming Nevada's citizens for being so gosh darn judgmental:]]> Omri 2009-11-04T15:39:21-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/29/112732/62

At first the Dream Toys Show & Expo rolling into Niagara Falls on January 30-31 seems like a straightforward car, bike, and boat show. There are vendors and displays where sellers will hawk their wares and exchange pleasantries with customers. There are shows in between to keep people amused, including contests like "Best Muscle," "Best Custom Bike," and "Hot Bikini Contest" ($500 1st place!) There are seminars on tattoos, bike maintenance, car audio, plus a bunch more. There's even a karate contest.

The convention, though, also has a skeezier aspect. In the back of the hall there's a VIP Gentleman's Club that kicks off at 6pm Saturday night. The club, such as it is, includes a burlesque show, a "lingerie show," and live music. It also has pole dancers and a bar. Details are sketchy about the degree to which the lingerie remains intact while the live music is playing, but the overarching concept was enough to raise concerns with the Niagara tourism board.

The entire expo, you see, is also being billed as a family event. There's a bounce house set up. The juxtaposition has engendered in board members what psychologists like to call "cognitive dissonance." Or in Internet terms, they were all like wtf:]]> Omri 2009-10-29T17:26:46-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/28/144019/25

Normally when you see negative travel advertising about a city or state, it's one locale trying to play itself up as an alternative to another and occasionally you run into a campaign that's more or less being done to punish a place. An example of this is food companies' punitive response to New York's ongoing war against smoking/alcohol/transfats/fun, but it's very unusual to have a campaign that's just pure "don't go to this place" spite. What's been happening in Honduras, where the exiled Tourism Minister is screening negative ads about his own country, is indeed very unusual.

The politics down in Honduras are obviously a mess. Manuel Zelaya was ousted from the presidency with various degrees of legitimacy and justification, the answer to that varying with where you fall on the political spectrum. The US government, along with Honduras' neighbors, insist it was a coup. The Honduran Supreme Court, legislature, and army mostly beg to disagree. None of that matters for our purposes. Instead we enter the story where Ricardo Martinez, Zelaya's former Tourism minister, is invited to act as the country's legitimate representative at the Central American Travel Market.

He was, all things considered, not the best imaginable spokesman for the Honduran tourism industry...]]> Omri 2009-10-29T08:39:18-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/26/85018/904

Nepal as a gay travel destination was something of a surprise. But the fact that London has just opened up an LGBT Tourist Information Office isn't too out of the blue – but it's a good thing just the same.

The office director says the reason for the center is to show that "London's exciting LGBT life is the best in the world". There might be a few cities which would beg to differ, but you'd have to agree that a huge city like London definitely has plenty for everyone.

But – here's a pretty big "but" – the office's website doesn't show much about the exciting LGBT life in London yet. Sure, it's early days, but the site's just a simple Wordpress blog with hardly anything on it, and really not ready to be launched, in our humble opinion. ]]> amandak 2009-10-26T14:52:19-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/26/105656/06

When it comes to destinations, the new new thing is for a travel bureau to reach out to you as specifically as possible. Hey, you reading this blog! You want to go here! Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but we always like to see an interesting new campaign at work, like Philadelphia's "Philly 360°" campaign.

Philly 360° puts the city's African-American heritage front and center with videos and guides to jazz clubs and Underground Railroad sites. It's part of a larger micro-marketing campaign that includes ¡Philly Te Ama! (Latino Philadelphia) and We Your People, the LGBT Philadelphia promotions.

While the campaign focuses on black musicians, artists and trendsetters, anyone can enjoy shopping tips from Rakia Reynolds of Vibe Magazine or hear about ?uestlove's favorite hoagie joint. Kudos to Philly for thinking outside the box and outside Black History Month for this; after all, travel happens all year round.

Related Stories:
· Philly 360° Launch Page [GoPhila.com]
· Jaunted Does Lunch With ?uestlove of the Roots [Jaunted]
· Secret Sneaker Shopping in Philadelphia [Jaunted]

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