LEISURE TRAVEL January 2013 Prepared by: Rosemarie Payne, CHME Director Leisure Travel, USA & Canada

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1 LEISURE TRAVEL January 2013 Prepared by: Rosemarie Payne, CHME Director Leisure Travel, USA & Canada RECAP Trade Shows/Missions January /18 The Villages Travel Expo 1/18-20 NY Times Travel Show 1/21-23 Great Vacations Expo, Columbus OH 1/22-24 TWIGS Travel Women International Golf Society 1/24-26 Florida Huddle, St. Augustine 1/26-28 Adventures in Travel Expo, Chicago, IL 1/27-2/09 FITUR and VISIT FLORIDA Spain Sales Mission 1/29-30 Snowbird Extravaganza, Lakeland The Villages Travel Expo January 18, 2013 ATTENDANCE: 64,000 Consumers who travel frequently and were looking for ideas. (Although the Villages has 91,000 residents) PARTICIPATION: Hyatt Regency Clearwater Beach DISTRIBUTED: 720 Visitor Guides, 700 Beach & Culture Maps, 300 Luggage Tags, 200 Sunscreen, 10 Bags of Candy, 500 Hyatt Pieces Other Pinellas exhibitors: Postcard Inn, Bilmar, TradeWinds Casino Boat, Sheraton Sand Key. Very positive feedback about our destination if they had been to St. Pete/Clearwater before. New visitors were excited to learn about all the downtown redevelopment, museums and Beach Walk. Spring Training was a big draw as well. Numerous requests for organized day trip adventures, but they were happy to have our area maps with ideas to explore on their own. Can you ever have enough give-a-ways for this crowd? Scooped up whatever was on the table, but pretty sure they would read through and keep any logo collateral. This fall we will look to expand our exhibit space and bring even more of our local partners to this event. RECOMMENDATION: VSPC travels to the Villages twice a year to attend their travel expos. STAFFED BY: Rhonda Sanborn 1

2 NY Times Travel Show- New York, NY January 18-20, 2013 ATTENDANCE: Over 25,000 Consumers and 500 Travel Professionals PARTICPATION: Alden Suites Resort, Holiday Inn Harbourside, Postcard Inn on the Beach DISTRIBUTED: 720 Visitor Guides, 900 Beach & Culture Maps and Assorted Logo Items This is the largest travel trade/consumer travel show that is held in New York City each year. VSPC was one of nine booths in the VISIT FLORIDA section. The timing of the show coincided with the launch of the new VSPC ad campaign I Need Sun, which targets NY consumers. To reinforce our ad message, we had signage in the booth promoting the new campaign and we invited customers to enter the sweepstakes. There seemed to be a great demand for our area according to the consumers we interacted with. Many said they were planning to try the St. Pete Clearwater area or already had reservations to visit within the next 90 days. RECOMMENDATION: VSPC will return to this show in 2014 as it is currently the only consumer travel show in Manhattan and all of our competing beaches destinations are exhibiting. STAFFED BY: Rob Price Great Vacations Expo, Columbus, OH January 21-23, 2013 ATTENDANCE: 1,600+ Consumers PARTICIPATION: TradeWinds Island Resorts DISTRIBUTED: 1,200 Visitor Guides For the three days of the Expo, many visitors we interacted with indicated that they were interested in St. Pete/Clearwater with regards to family and weekend getaways. There was a wide variety of Florida destinations represented, including Panama City CVB and Beaches of Sanibel/Ft Myers CVB. AAA Great Vacations Expo offered a full line of presentations with special guest appearances during the show. RECOMMENDATION: This was the third year VSPC participated in this annual AAA event should be better than ever. STAFFED BY: Gail Yeager 2

3 TWIGS Travel Women International Golf Society January 22 24, 2013 ATTENDANCE: Approximately 140 Golfers Florida Huddle Buyers, Media and Hotel Industry PARTICPATION: TradeWinds Island Resorts, Alden Suites Resort, Marriott Sand Key & Sunset Vistas DISTRIBUTED: N/A This golf outing is very popular with domestic & international wholesale partners for VSPC. These customers are in town for Florida Huddle. Now that VISIT FLORIDA (VF) has purchased Huddle, VF might take over TWIGS as well, moving forward. There were great networking opportunities to meet with key clients over the 2-day event. RECOMMENDATION: VSPC will continue to support & attend TWIGS. STAFFED BY: Rosemarie Payne Florida Huddle St. Augustine, FL January 24-26, 2013 ATTENDANCE: 400+ Industry Buyers, Suppliers and Travel Industry Media BROCHURE DISTRIBUTION: N/A DISTRIBUTED: 10 Visitor Guides and 20 Beach & Culture Maps VSPC hosted the first ever Florida Huddle Fun Run with participation by over 40 attendees, including all of the major tour operators and Online Travel Agencies. This event was a great success and once again showcased VSPC as an innovator by standing apart from our competitors. Appointments were very busy and clients say that business continues to increase with 2013 bookings pacing ahead of Planning was initiated, during several appointments, on co-op marketing opportunities with our top account for the summer season. Nineteen (19) of our Pinellas County accommodation partners exhibited at the show. RECOMMENDATION: Florida Huddle is a must do event on the calendar every year at which we have the opportunity to have business meetings and network with the majority of all our top tour operators in one venue. Next year Florida Huddle will be held in Palm Beach. STAFFED BY: Rosemarie Payne, Rob Price, David Downing 3

4 Travel & Adventure Show Chicago, IL January 26-28, 2013 ATTENDANCE: Over 17,000 Consumers and Travel Trade Professionals PARTICPATION: TRS, Core Fitness Solutions BROCHURE DISTRIBUTION: Holiday Inn Harbourside DISTRIBUTED: 1000 Visitor Guides and 900 Beach & Culture Maps, Partner Collateral This show continues to be one of the top consumer shows in Chicago. Overall the show was extremely busy with an entire isle dedicated to Florida exhibitors which included Sea World, TradeWinds Guy Harvey Outpost, The Florida Keys, Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Jupiter/Stewart, and Kissimmee Star Island. This year the show broke all attendance records. This annual event continues to excel due to the fact that they partner with AAA, Budget Travel Magazine, Sea World Parks & Entertainment and ABC 7 to promote the show. Industry partners support this show and find it very successful for their businesses. RECOMMENDATION: Recommend spending more dollars for an upgraded booth and more sun items to give-a-way. It was freezing cold and selling the sunshine was a huge draw. Rhonda traveled for the Leisure Travel Department, as the show continues to fall over Florida Huddle dates. Rhonda has confirmed her participation in STAFFED BY: Rhonda Sanborn FITUR & VISIT FLORIDA Spain Sales Mission January 27 February 9, 2013 ATTENDANCE: 5,000 Travel Industry and Consumers came by the FITUR Booth, 10 Tour Operator Sales Calls in Barcelona & Madrid, 2 Travel Agent Lunch Presentations and 1 Evening Travel Agent Reception during the Mission PARTICPATION: TradeWinds Island Resorts at FITUR DISTRIBUTED: 360 Visitor Guides, 300 Beach & Culture Maps, 400 Trade Show Plastic Logo Bags, 100 Zippered Bags for Travel Agent Reception The trade show was busy. Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater and VISIT FLORIDA shared a booth. We had a great location at the show! We ran-out of collateral before the consumer day on Saturday and had an additional 500 pieces, featuring our Spanish Website Home Page, printed in Madrid. Saw our Rep. from Argentina, Pablo Rodriguez at the show. 4

5 Spent the majority of the show educating the industry on the location of St. Pete/Clearwater. The Spanish market knows Miami & Orlando. Mission details great airline support with Delta and American (both would support FAM s to our area), strong tour operator support from TUI & Kuoni; traveled with Ft. Lauderdale CVB and Macy s. Tour Operators were interested in fly-drive programs for Florida. The Spanish know Miami and Orlando and like to drive around the state. Economy is still very poor in Spain; affluent travelers are the ones coming to the states. (6 million are still unemployed) The lunches were held in the restaurant inside Estadio Santiago Bernabeu (the stadium for Real Madrid). This was a beautiful venue and customers loved it. VISIT FLORIDA is continuing their education strategy in Spain newsletters to agents with editorial covering all parts of Florida. Most Tour Operators in Spain use Receptive Operators in Miami for Florida. Honeymooners like Florida and the Caribbean Jorge, with VISIT FLORIDA based in Spain, is sending out an electronic magazine to 14,000 travel agents in March. The piece will feature the VSPC /Dali advertisement. RECOMMENDATION: In 2014 VISIT FLORIDA is considering another sales mission to Spain. This one would be focused on travel agent training. A mission like that would be excellent for St. Pete/Clearwater. STAFFED BY: Rosemarie Payne Snowbird Extravaganza, Lakeland January 29-30, 2013 ATTENDANCE: 32,000 + Consumers PARTICIPATION: Pierhouse 60, Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) DISTRIBUTED: 1,800 Visitor Guides Beach and Culture Maps Attendees at the show are winter residents living in and around the Lakeland/Orlando area. This show allows VSPC to market to these seniors that tend to travel midweek with a one or two night stay. Their travels to St. Pete/Clearwater generally include stops at local attractions and shopping. Numerous group leaders or travel escorts from mobile home parks or condo associations were very interested in the area. There were several inquiries regarding the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg for group travelers. Fox News covered this event live, both days. That definitely increased the exposure and attendance for this show. 5

6 Our destination was also represented by Jeff Clause of the Clearwater St. Petersburg Airport (PIE). RECOMMENDATION: This was the sixth year VSPC participated in the Snowbird Extravaganza held in Lakeland, Florida. This is a premier consumer show for the Canadian Senior Market. STAFFED BY: Gail Yeager CANADIAN MARKET UPDATE Canadian Traveller Magazine inserted their Canadian s Guide to Florida supplement in the January 2013 issue. VSPC had a half page ad and other hotel partners that advertized were the Dolphin Beach Resort, Postcard Inn, Crystal Palms and the Condo Alliance. The editorial also mentioned Caladesi Island, Honeymoon Island, Dali Museum and there was a paragraph on the entire St. Pete/Clearwater area. Sunwing announced it will conduct a series of Trade Shows in Canada to promote their service across all of their product lines. VSPC and PIE will partner together to attend the three largest shows in the Greater Toronto Area - Mississauga/Oakville, Kitchener and the Toronto Airport Area. Sunwing is expecting 350 travel agents at the first show, 150 in Kitchener and 300 to attend the show by the airport. The dates are April 29 th, 30 th and May 1 st. UPCOMING EVENTS SALES MISSIONS February, /07-10 VISIT FLORIDA Travel Industry Event, Boston MA 2/16-18 AAA Travel Odyssey & Expo, Reading PA EDUCATIONAL VISITS 4/10-12 Norwegian Tour Operators FAM 5/11-13 Alamo Lastminute.com/Holiday Autos German FAM 6