Jaunted

Tags: Tourism Advertising / Tourism Boards / Tourism Marketing / Travel Ads / → All Tags

Tourism Boards Say Their Failed Tourism Slogans Are Your Fault

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:

more ›

Tags: Niagara Falls / Auto Shows / Cars / Tourism Boards / → All Tags

Niagara Tourism Board Confused, Troubled By Adult-Themed Family-Branded Auto Show

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:

more ›

Tags: Political Travel / Honduras Travel / Travel Advertising / Tourism Boards / Travel Ads / → All Tags

Honduran Tourism Minister Launches Blistering Ad Campaign Against...Honduras?

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...

more ›

Tags: London Travel / Gay Travel / Tourism Boards / → All Tags

London Gets A Gay Traveler Info Center With Boring Website

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.

more ›

Tags: Tourism Boards / Philadelphia Travel / Diverse Travel / → All Tags

Philly 360 Campaign Hopes To Attract African-American Visitors

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]

[Photo: micholitzii]

Tags: Gay Travel / Nepal / Tourism Boards / Nepal Travel / → All Tags

Nepal Rebranding Itself As Go-To Gay Travel Destination

Nepal, a country that's been wracked by years of political instability, is desperately in need of tourism money. GLBT travelers and couples, all things being equal, tend to have relatively high amounts of disposable income, or so Nepal thinks. Therefore, the Nepal tourism board is launching a massive campaign to highlight the country as a gay travel destination. In addition to a very public campaign, they're planning to host an international conference next winter specifically on the subject:

Nepal government has held a series of meetings with well-known international tour operators and non-profit organisations to promote Nepal as a potential destination for LGBTs... Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) officials hope that LGBT arrivals will give a boost to the number of visitors to the country as the government mulls new way to bring in a million foreign tourists in the Nepal Tourism Year 2011. "Some international companies want to work in tandem with the government and attract LGBTs.'

more ›

Tags: Tourism Boards / Tourism Board Travel / Travel Media / Hawaii Travel / Tourism Advertising / → All Tags

As If We Didn't Already Know: Vacations Make People Happier, More Productive

Every few months another one of these "vacation deprivation" studies comes out and promptly gets picked up as Science! by the same tourism boards that commissioned it. The term seems to go back to a contest for free hotel rooms that Hyatt ran in the mid-1990s, and it's been circulating as this kind of pseudo-scientific fake medical term ever since.

The latest version puts everything in terms of economic productivity, because that's what people care about right now. If people cared about something else, that's what vacations would be good for. And so, we are stuck with this drivel:

more ›

Tags: Tourism Advertising / Tourism Boards / Tourism Marketing / Travel Ads / Wisconsin Travel / → All Tags

WTF, Wisconsin?

WTF, yo? Poor Wisconsin; their tourism board obviously doesn't employ any youngsters who are familiar with the hip, internet lingo of the day. Perhaps they should have run their name by an intern first? The "Wisconsin Tourism Federation," or WTF, is a little late to realize that their own acronym is also a popular abbreviation for "what the f*ck."

So instead of continue on the path to permanent jokedom, the WTF sat down and decided to give in to the web change their name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin, or TFW. CNET has the scoop on their reasoning: "'We didn't want it to detract from our mission,' said Julia Hertel, a spokeswoman for the newly renamed TFW."

Aw, isn't that cute? But you see, what they didn't count on and probably still haven't realized the value of, is all this publicity. Now, thanks to their slip-up and unfortunate association with a cussing internet slang term, the WTF TFW is known outside of Milwaukee. The jury is still out on whether or not this incident will attract tourists to the dairy state.

Related Stories:
· WTF? Bloggers cause Wisconsin Tourism Federation to change name [CNET]
· Wisconsin Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: WTF or is it TFW?]

Tags: Travel Advertising / Tourism Boards / Wisconsin Travel / Travel Ads / → All Tags

Entire County Wants You To Friend Them On Facebook

The tourism board of Northern Wisconson's Forest County Chamber of Commerce has reached back to old media to promote their new social media campaign, erecting a billboard on Highway 32 to highlight their Facebook fan page. The idea is to promote the Facebook page as a portal into the rest of the county's tourism promotions, with pictures, links to more specific sites, and event information. Cute:

Sadly, no one talks about billboards any longer. But they're still out there and they still work. So why are we talking about the lowly billboard today? Social media, of course... it's big news when a billboard is used to promote a Facebook page... Located just south of Lakewood on HWY 32, travelers from Milwaukee and Chicago heading north will see the board which carries an invitation from the Crandon Chamber to "Become a friend of Crandon" on Facebook.

more ›

Tags: Travel Advertising / Travel Ads / Canada Travel / Twitter / Wild Animals / Tourism Boards / American Airlines / → All Tags

Canada's Most Famous Squirrel Turns To Twitter To Promote Travel

Remember this photo from a month ago, with Melissa Brandts and her husband, joined by the world's most recent celebrity squirrel? It went from Lake Minnewanka, in Canada's Banff National Park, to the National Geographic "Photo Of The Day" site. Then it went pretty much everywhere.

American Airlines is betting you remember this mini-meme quite well, which is why they've pulled their "French guy training squirrels on scooters" advertisement out of the vault. In case you missed the not-entirely-unobnoxious ad when it originally aired in the spring, here it is again:

more ›

Tags: Tourism Advertising / Tourism Boards / Tourism Marketing / Travel Ads / Panama Travel / → All Tags

Panama Picks A Tourism Slogan Reminiscent Of Childhood Trauma, STDs

The good folks at the Panama Investor Blog are befuddled as to why the country has settled on "Panama - It Will Never Leave You" as their new tourism slogan. Great question! They attempt to work out the meaning behind the slogan-change:

I have caught wind of the new slogan they will be using to promote tourism in Panama and it is not so good... 'Panama - It Will Never Leave You.' Unlike your friends, your girlfriend or your spouse, Panama will always be there. Sounds to me like a HIV or malaria, neither of which I believe will help us attract tourists.

We were going to go with a herpes punchline because HIV is a total downer, and for the record, malaria can indeed be cured with the right battery of anti-parasite drugs. But the point nonetheless remains. This is not, in the strictest sense, the most attractive slogan ever produced by an ad agency.

more ›

Tags: Fees / Travel Fees / Tourism Boards / International Travel / → All Tags

U.S. to International Visitors: Gimme Ten Bucks

Is a visit to the U.S. worth ten bucks? The U.S. Senate seems to think so. According to the AP, the Senate voted on Wednesday to charge a $10 fee to international visitors, with the proceeds funding a nonprofit corporation to promote tourism to the country. In order for the bill to become law, the House of Representatives would also have to approve it, but if they do, foreign visitors who do not need visas to enter the country would have to pay the fee each time they register online in advance of a trip.

more ›