Travel
and Tourism Research
Association
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The
Research Network News
CenStates Chapter TTRA
- Second Quarter
2010 | |
| TTRA
Annual Conference |
June 20-22 in San
Antonio
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Send Us Your
News!
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Have you:
Changed
jobs?
Won an award?
Done great research?
Please share your news by emailing
CenStates with your updates. And be sure to add us to
your e-mail press release distribution list -- we want
to hear your news.
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| Travel
Trends |
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 When Timothy Schneider,
publisher of Association
News and SportsTravel,
was recently asked what travel trends he sees in
his part of the tourism world, he shared with us
the following: Based on what we hear
from convention bureaus, there is a growing level
of optimism about recovery in the hospitality
industry. Most believe that the second half of
2010 will bring some increase in REVPAR and
significant increases in hotel occupancy. That
bodes well for convention bureaus that rely on
hotel occupancy taxes for their funding. But since
there is a lag time between collection of those
revenues and their availability for disbursement,
we expect to see tight convention bureau budgets
through at least one more budgeting cycle and
no increases in their budgets until
mid-2011.
With
the explosion in the marketplace of the popularity
of smart phones and mobile computing devices,
those in the travel industry need to take another
look at their online and digital strategies.
It may be a real eye opener for people to see
what their web sites look like on an iPhone or
iPad--neither device will play Flash video or
elements. So unless you're designing to be read
across those very popular devices, you're going to
be losing an important, influential segment
of your prospective market. And those in the
travel industry who have not converted their
printed promotional pieces to digital format are
also missing another way to reach prospective
customers. | |
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Plan Now to Attend the CenStates
Conference |
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Are you ready to get
your research kicks? Historic Route 66 is the place to
do it. The annual CenStates TTRA conference will be
September 22 and 23 in Springfield, MO,
which sits on the famous road. Watch for programming
details, but you won't want to miss the live focus group
uncovering how consumers use social media to make travel
decisions and the influence of Facebook fan
pages for attractions and destinations. For more
information or to register, visit www.censtatesttra.com.
In honor of the 2010
conference location on Route 66 in Springfield, the
registration cost is ONLY $66 for NEW MEMBERS to
CenStates TTRA. So this is the year to join
TTRA and the CenStates Chapter! Registration fees for
members will remain at a reasonable $165 early bird and
$180 for non members. Now you can get your research
kicks at a great
price! |
Destination Travel
Research in a Down
Economy |
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By Pat
Simmons
Explore Minnesota
Tourism
I don't imagine it is
news to anyone reading this newsletter that research can
be an easy target when organizational budgets are
squeezed. Few among us have been immune from staff
and/or program cuts during the current recession. While
we can hope that a substantial and sustained recovery is
in progress, both for our industry and for the economy
overall, we will likely continue to be impacted for some
time to come.
Should we address travel
research needs differently in our current recessionary
times? I'll throw out some things to consider, in hopes
that some may have relevance to you and your research
program. Even though my frame of reference is that of a
state travel office researcher, I'll try to make this
general enough to apply to a variety of research needs
and perspectives. More |
| From Where I
Sit |
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By Patty Becraft, Springfield MO
CVB
CenStates Chapter President
Greetings fellow CenStates
members!
You are receiving this e-newsletter because you
are a member of TTRA's CenStates Chapter or should
consider becoming one! I hope that you
find this newsletter a valuable
resource.
The CenStates board met in
Springfield (Missouri) in March and covered a wide range
of topics and recommendations that will be a benefit to
each of our members. More |
| Trending Water in
CenStates |
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By
Dee Ann McKinney, Strategic Planning & Research
Director, Missouri Division of Tourism; President,
TTRA International
 Trending Water in CenStates is a
quarterly column on 'trends' written or, more
accurately, coordinated by yours truly! Each
quarter, key tourism industry people are asked that they
send in one or two tourism-related trends from their
area.
For
this quarter's column, we chose two key leaders in the
field of state tourism office research:
Louri
O'Leary,
Texas Tourism Research Manager from the Office of the
Governor - Economic
Development & Tourism Division and Sara
Otte Coleman,
Director of Tourism, North Dakota
Department of Commerce. More | | |
_____________________________________________________________________________
In
consideration of the environment, CenStates supports
paperless, electronic newsletter
formats.
Thank you to the CenStates
newsletter committee who developed the content for this
publication:Patty
Becraft, Springfield MO Convention and Visitors
Bureau; DeeAnn
McKinney, Missouri Division of
Tourism; Pat Remming, St. Louis
Convention & Visitors Commission;and Patrick Simmons, Explore
Minnesota
Tourism.
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