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Tourism Boards

Tourism Board Travel: Get Your Float On In Annapolis

October 4, 2007 at 9:45 AM | 2 Comments

Every city has its defining annual event. In New Orleans, it's Mardi Gras. Toronto has its film festival. Every October in Annapolis, Maryland, thousands of boats dock for the United States Sailboat Show. The Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Conference and Visitors Bureau touts the event, now in its 38th year, as the pre-eminent boat show in the Western Hemisphere.

It makes sense. The preppiness of Cape Cod, Nantucket and Hilton Head combined don't rival the hometown of the U.S. Naval Academy. After all, half the city's male population wears white pants year-round.

Starting today and lasting until October 8, boats parade through Annapolis City Dock. The inlet is surrounded by "downtown" Annapolis--a few cobblestone streets lined with crab cake restaurants and J. Crew shops. Diners can watch from the deck or, for $16, climb aboard to see whether or not they want to invest in 420 feet of floating luxury.

Related Stories:
· United States Sailboat Show [Official Site]
· Annapolis Tourism Board [Official Site]
· Tourism Board Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Annapolis Hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: michaelangeloew]

Tourism Boards

New Theme Song Sparks Inter-Country Feud

October 3, 2007 at 4:00 PM | 0 Comments

Instead of commissioning a new song for its tourism campaign "Enjoy Asia," the country of Malaysia used a local folk song called "Feeling of Love," or, depending on who you ask, someone else's folk song. Some Indonesian citizens are singing a different tune: They claim the song is native to Indonesia specifically and shouldn't be used to promote a neighboring country.

Indonesian tourism minister Jero Wacik told Reuters he would spearhead a campaign to determine the authenticity of the song. Time was, a new country could steal, say, a British drinking song to make a new anthem. But if Indonesia can prove the song belongs to that island nation, do they have grounds for a suit? And what track will Malaysia pick to replace it?

Related Stories:
· Folk Song Sparks Row [Yahoo]
· Malaysia Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Stuck in Customs]

Tourism Board Travel

Tourism Board Travel: Into The Wild

September 27, 2007 at 12:00 PM | 0 Comments

The Fairbanks Convention and Visitors Bureau up in Alaska is worried about fielding a glut of angsty 20-somethings looking for an epiphany. With Sean Penn's new movie Into The Wild now in theaters, the tourism board anticipates a surge in visitors to The Stampede Trail, a remote path on the northern end of Denali National Park.

The film is based on the Jon Krakauer book by the same name that tells the true story of Chris McCandless, a wealthy young Notheasterner who discarded his possessions, hitchhiked to Alaska and took off on foot with limited supplies into the wilderness near Denali National Park and Preserve. Spoiler Alert: It didn't really work out for him.

Since the book's release in 1996, hundreds of visitors have traveled to the area. The bureau expects those trips to increase and is wondering how to protect people from themselves. The Stampede Trail--poorly defined, bug infested and out of cell phone range--crosses the Teklanika River, which rages in summer and prevented McCandless from getting back to civilization.

In its upcoming 2008 visitors guide, the Healy/Denali Chamber of Commerce will include a warning about the potential dangers of the trail. Other steps to implement safety measures include a proposal to increase park ranger supervision. That's just the kind of sanitized trek McCandless would lament.

Related Stories:
· Into The Wild Tourism [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]
· Fairbanks Conventions and Visitors Bureau [Official Site]
· Movie Set Travel: Into the Wild [Jaunted]

[Photo: Worst Previews]

Tourism Boards

The United States: Not As Bad As You Think

September 27, 2007 at 9:50 AM | 1 Comment

The US is a big, mean bully--or so many seem to think: Since 9/11, tourists are skipping the States because border security is so tight and uninviting. So the US travel industry is making a big push to work on its image. And they've hired Tom Ridge, the former Homeland Security chief who made getting into the country so damn hard to begin with. He says that tourists shouldn't avoid the states:

People, I think, have a sense that they're not quite as welcome in America as they were on September 10, 2001, and that's the furthest thing from the truth. So, we have to dust off the welcoming mat.

While the New York Times covered the other side of this story last week--with tales of surely border guards, etc.--today's the day that lobbyists are headed to Washington, DC to hype the Discover America Partnership, which was created last year by industry heavies like Disney and Marriott.

The group hopes to streamline the visa application process and add customs agents to make it easier to visit the States. The industry is also hoping to score $200 million to promote foreign tourism to the US. Hopefully they use it to buy a better tag line than Australia did.

Related Stories:
· Discover America Partnership [Official Site]
· From Homeland Security to Travel Booster [NPR]
· Tourism Boards coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: are you my rik?]

Tourism Boards

Coup Travel: The South Pacific's the Place

September 7, 2007 at 9:15 AM | 0 Comments

A recent campaign for selling a holiday to Fiji from New Zealand used the headline "What a coup!" to try to entice vacationers. Doesn't sound too tasteless, unless of course you remember the country's military coup late last year.

Travel to the island country in the past year has been a bit disrupted by political instability. Case in point: The military-led government has just instituted a state of emergency to keep a grip on power.

The Advertising Standards Authority took a good look at the "What a coup!" campaign and said it was offensive, "but not offensive enough to breach its code of ethics". Makes us wonder what the bloody hell would break the rules.

Related Stories:
· Fiji Coup Ad Questionable [stuff.co.nz]
· Ask An Aussie About Fijian Coups [HotelChatter]
· Fiji Travel Stories [Jaunted]

[Photo: Alex Kehr]

Tourism Boards

Seattle's Metropolitan Nature

September 6, 2007 at 3:34 PM | 0 Comments

The Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau shouldn't have a tough time selling the Emerald City, at least since the sexy surgeons of Grey's Anatomy started crawling all over town. But just in case you've put off your visit, in one of the most tortured promotional schemes we've seen, the bureau reminds us that Seattle is "Metronatural".

Riiight. The guy behind the term says:

Branding a city like Seattle required a brand new word - so we created one.

The premise is that you get both outdoor tourism and great culture in Seattle. That much, at least, we can't dispute. With the newly-expanded Seattle Art Museum, its Olympic Sculpture Park and the renovated Seattle Aquarium, the city seems to be doing just fine without the hokey tag line.

Related Stories:
· Seattle CVB [Official Site]
· Seattle Art Museum [Official Site]
· Seattle Aquarium [Official Site]
· Seattle coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: WorldSpectator]

Tourism Boards

Tourism Board Travel: China

August 28, 2007 at 10:20 AM | 0 Comments

Visiting China can be a wonderful experience, full of visits to sites of unparalleled human achievement like The Great Wall. And the China National Tourist Office is quite happy to have you see that--rather than the country's sites of unparalleled injustice like Tiananmen Square. Its website runs point on keeping visitors at the former and away from the latter.

The site slices all of China's areas into manageable bites, making the big country easy enough to navigate. Visitors can also find in-depth--though sanitized--background information about the country's history, climate, religion, geography and more. The 2008 Olympics also figure into the mix, with a tie-in to the official site. You'll also find links to approved travel agencies that can help you plan and book trips if your Mandarin isn't as good as it used to be.

Related Stories
· China National Tourist Office [Official Site]
· China Travel [Jaunted]

[Photo: cyberworks]

Tourists

World's Worst Tourists: Could Indians Be In The Running?

August 15, 2007 at 9:45 AM | 0 Comments

There's no doubt that the poor British pop up constantly in surveys of bad tourists, and the whole pre-wedding-get-really-drunk-party in Budapest or Vilnius thing hasn't helped in the last few years. But a recent Expedia survey suggested that the French are pretty bad tourists, and that Indians are the world's second worst tourists.

Naturally, the Indians are protesting. Columnist Antara Dev Sen uses the argument that tourist boards are advertising across India to encourage Indians to travel to their countries, so surely these countries want them to visit. (She's forgotten, perhaps, that tourist boards just want to bring money into the country, and the quality of tourist is less important.) But really, she says, Indian tourists just like to have fun on their holidays:

Take the British Museum, for example ... Wherever you look you'll see little Indian kids running about breathlessly, swinging from those old statues and all, clambering onto those broken pillars and playing with the dead stuff. But the British are too strict, baba! They always come and shoo them away!

She goes on to discuss the Indian habit of drying clothes across hotel room furniture, singing in tourist buses and setting up their cookers wherever they're hungry. We can't imagine how they got voted the world's second worst tourists.

Related Stories:
· The Bad, Bad British [Jaunted]
· Japanese Are The Best Tourists [Jaunted]
· Indians Are Bad Tourists? Nonsense! [Sify.com]

[Photo: LostPizzaBoy]

Toilets

When You Need To Go in New Zealand

August 15, 2007 at 9:30 AM | 0 Comments

The annual New Zealand's Best Loo competition is on again. A loo is, of course, what all those colonial types call a toilet, so this is a New Zealand Tourism-sponsored hunt for the country's best public bathroom. Apparently bad restrooms are the most common thing tourists complain about, so the tourism board is trying to raise the standard across the country through this contest. Tourism chief Barry Lucinski reckons

The state of a town's public loo speaks loudly about the town itself and its level of public spirit.

Know a good loo in NZ? Entrants need to write 300 words about why their favorite public bathroom should win, and also send in photos. What exactly you're going to say for 300 words remains a bit of a mystery to us but presumably too much toilet humor won't actually be considered funny.

Related Stories:
· Hunt Is On For NZ's Best Loo [NZ Herald]
· The World's Highest Bathroom [Jaunted]
· The World's Most Beautiful Toilets [Jaunted]

[Photo: sbisson]

Ecotourism

Tourism Board Travel: Costa Rica

August 14, 2007 at 11:43 AM | 0 Comments

In August, Delta Air Lines announced it is increasing the number of flights from New York to Costa Rica from 28 weekly to 35. Delta's decision reflects the growing popularity of the destination.

With ecotourism all the rage, The Costa Rica Tourism Board website is getting more hits than Dave Chappelle's bong. The country is long considered the place for couples in matching khaki cargo shorts to stand beneath the jungle canopy, binoculars in hand, pinpointing the correct toucan species from their guidebook.

Drop-down menus on the tourism board site tell potential visitors how they can find a guide to take them deep into said jungle, with a guide, a car, and a place to sleep that night. It also helps decipher where's the best place to glimpse particular wildlife. It'll even fill you in on lounging at Tabacon Hot Springs--that's it above--if tracking rare birds isn't your thing.

Related Stories:
· Costa Rica Tourism Board [Official Site]
· Costa Rica Hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: Costa Rica Link]

Tourism Boards

Grenada Tourism Board Boasts Boat Races and Parties

August 7, 2007 at 10:20 AM | 0 Comments

Grenada celebrated the abolition of slavery Monday with Emancipation Day, according to the country's ever-breathless Tourism Board.

Ok, so maybe the board's website is about as understated as a 13-year-old's MySpace page. But what it lacks in subtlety, it makes up in substance. The site organizes info around activities and attractions: You'll find separate portals for those coming to cruise, dive, boat, go hashing and even get married at one of the country's three islands, which include Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique.

Last weekend was the Carriacou Regatta. Boaters from neighboring Tobago, Martinique, Antigua and St. Vincent and the Grenadines sailed over to compete. Next weekend the main island will host Grenada Carnival in all its peacock-feathered glory.

Related Stories:
· Hotels in Grenada [HotelChatter]
· Grenada Tourism Board [Official Site]

[Photo: Grenada Grenadines]

Tourism Boards

Poland Tourism Board Gets Interactive

July 31, 2007 at 8:55 AM | 0 Comments

Poland's tourism board has embarked on a publicity blitz since the announcement that it will host the 2012 European Football Championships, along with Ukraine. The website includes the standard tourism board links to the country's history, travel information, regions and cities, recreation and sports, and culture and arts.

Although it's still in beta testing, the just-launched interactive travel portal proves that the Polskas are hip to this Web 2.0 trend. There, users can create personal profiles and tailor the site according to their interests and travel plans. The site has interactive maps, video content, news feeds, and regularly updated tools like exchange rates and an events calendar.

Related Stories:
·Poland Tourism Board [Official Site]
·Poland Hotels [HotelChatter]

[Photo: Perfekt]