Travel Press - Blog
Here’s my 2 cents on St. Pete’s/Clearwater
- Thu 12th March 2009, 1:27 pm
It has been interesting to see the reaction of the Canadian travel trade to the recent announcement by Pinellas County that it’s planning to shut the St. Pete’s/Clearwater CVB office here in Canada. They’ll be voting on the matter during their meeting on March 17.
The arguments (and it’s pretty much unanimous) for keeping the office open come straight to the point:
!!! Kimberly Hartley is not only well-liked and well-respected by the trade here, but she’s also done a darned good job over the past decade keeping the destination top of mind.
!!! By closing the office, there’s a danger that agents and consumers will find new destinations to sell or go to – i.e. business will simply pass St. Pete’s by.
!!! The office has provided excellent support for agents.
!!! Not only has it given the destination a high profile in the Canadian market, it has also helped generate new business for St. Pete’s/Clearwater.
So let me add my two cents worth.
While shutting down an office may look good as a line item on a budget, what it doesn’t tell you is how such a decision impacts on the marketplace.
There is the old cliché: “Out of sight, out of mind” that I think applies to a situation like this.
Yes, I agree that the current economic mess we’re in is something that we’ve never experienced before in our lifetimes. And it’s scary.
However, I would be remiss if I also didn’t point out that Canada is not the United States. I think that it’s important to note that the impact of the so called ‘Great Recession’ is different here than it is in the US.
And by all accounts, Canadians are continuing to travel.
While they may be watching their vacation budget more closely or buying down when they travel, they’re still going.
In fact, when I was at my son’s hockey game this week, a number of the parents were concerned with the fact that games had been scheduled for the March Break week – March 16 to March 20 – and many of the teams were going to be quite short of players. My son’s team, for example, had five (5) of its players headed off on vacation with their families for the week.
While that’s anecdotal, my point is that there is still business out there to be had. Canadians are concerned, but they are adapting their plans to suit the present economic environment … and I truly believe that those plans include travel.
And based on my experience -- whether in good times or bad times – it’s the destinations and the travel companies that have a presence in Canada (or any market for that matter) and that have developed a relationship with the agents and operators here that generally get the business.
Think about it. We are in an industry that’s always been about personal relationships.
That’s my take … let me know what you think.
Oh and if you want to let the powers that be in Pinellas County know what you think, you can contact Calvin Harris, commission chairman for the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners by e-mail at CHarris@pinellascounty.org .
Fighting back in a ‘climate of fear’
- Wed 11th March 2009, 9:43 am
I think one of the things that I’ve found particularly galling about the ‘global financial meltdown’ is that the foolishness of the few has resulted in the suffering of the many.
Consider the temper of the times in Washington, DC where the few – the politicians and media – have made it essentially politically incorrect to hold a meeting these days.
Those politicians may not have intended this result, but in staking out their political turf to go on record to say that any of the financial institutions receiving US government bailout money shouldn’t be holding lavish meetings – which is as it should be – they’ve also made companies that didn’t get a bailout, re-think plans for meetings in the coming year.
Not surprisingly, the US Travel Association is steamed about this state of affairs and is fighting back with its “Meetings Mean Business” campaign – check out the details at http://www.meetingsmeanbusiness.com .
Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, says of the present situation:
“Make no mistake, companies that have received taxpayer assistance must be held to a different standard and conduct their business in a transparent and responsible manner. But the pendulum has swung too far. The climate of fear is causing a historic pullback of business meetings and events, with a devastating impact on small businesses, American workers and communities.”
Dow points to a recent survey that shows that over 20% of companies -- that have not received taxpayer assistance -- have cancelled events due to recent media and political attention.
More than half (52%) claim the news coverage has been extremely or moderately influential on their companies’ decisions to hold events.
The US Travel Association’s boss says that meetings and events are responsible for nearly 15% of all travel in the United States and create $101 billion in spending, one million jobs and nearly $16 billion in tax revenue at the federal, state and local level.
And he notes that without the jobs generated by travel for meetings and events, the unemployment rate in the United States would jump from 7.6% to 8.2%.
The US Travel Association’s partners in the “Meetings Mean Business” campaign include the American Hotel and Lodging Association, Destination Marketing Association International, International Association of Exhibitions and Events, Meetings Professional International, National Business Travel Association, Professional Convention and Management Association and SITE (formerly the Society of Incentive Travel Executives).
Seems to me that the whole point of all this economic stimulating that’s going on is to get people to keep doing business, to continue to move forward and to get the economy going again.
That’s my take, and hopefully the politicians in Washington will get
I have a plan to stimulate the economy
- Mon 9th March 2009, 10:29 am
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I believe I’ve stumbled upon a plan that will help this country’s travel and tourism industry not just weather the economic storm that’s currently battering us here in Canada, but actually allow it to thrive in these tough times.
No, no … no applause is needed. I’m doing this solely for the good of the industry.
What I’m suggesting is that instead of the government giving money to banks to help free up the credit markets that money should actually be given to consumers so they can pay off all of their debts – mortgages, lines of credit, credit card balances, car loans, you name it, and it would be paid off.
Think about it, the banks would get the money they need, they’d just get it from you and me and every other Canadian taxpayer with debts to pay, rather than from the federal government.
At the end of the process, the government would have stimulated the economy, the banks wouldn’t have to worry about their exposure to defaults – at least not from consumers here in Canada -- and consumers would be jumping for joy because they wouldn’t have all that nasty debt hanging over their heads.
And tough times or not, with no money owing and with all those great travel bargains already out there in the marketplace, I suspect that many Canadians would be heading off on a vacation pretty quickly to celebrate their new found financial health. They’d probably even pay cash for the trip!
Okay, I admit that this is simplistic. But aren’t we in a situation that calls for some wacky, ‘outside-the-box’ thinking – simplistic, crazy or otherwise.
The money the federal government is spending and is going to be spending for its stimulus plan is tax money – yours and mine – so why not give it back to the people who really need it, not to mention, who gave it to Ottawa in the first place.
I mean if you’re living in fear about losing your job, having your debts cleared before you get your pink slip may not save your job, but it will definitely help reduce some of the stress you’re feeling.
Besides the federal government and many provincial governments are already making it pretty clear that they’ll be running deficit budgets for the next little while and we all know that it’s us, Canadians, who are going to be paying for those deficits eventually.
Now I don’t know about you, but I for one know that I’d feel much better about that if I knew I’d be financially unencumbered when governments started raising my taxes to pay off those debts.
Anyway, I’m just thinking out loud here … so let me know what you think.
Confused, but the glass is still half full
- Fri 6th March 2009, 2:37 pm
I’m confused.
How bad are things right now?
I mean is it “the end of the world as we know it; Grapes of Wrath; the Big D dust bowl; turn-out-the-lights the party’s over” kind of bad.
Or is it a case of things being not as good as they have been because we’ve been living beyond our means, playing fast and loose with the rules and now we’re paying for it kind of bad.
The reason I’m wondering about this is because I’m having trouble separating the negatives from the positives.
These days, if I only listened to the mass media, I’d be packing up the family in the jalopy and heading out west to find work before the tumbleweeds started tumbling along the empty sidewalks of Bay Street and the last canapé and drink are served to travel types in the ‘Big Smoke.’
Fortunately I don’t just depend on the nightly news and what I find when I get off that grid is that there are positives out there.
Consider, for example, a recent online survey that Aeroplan did with 600 of its members about March Break and their future travel plans in 2009.
What do you know – 78 per cent of those participating in the survey said they were planning to take a personal trip within the first six months of 2009 and 87 per cent indicated they’d be travelling with family or friends this year.
That’s a pretty positive piece of information.
Aeroplan’s survey also found that half of the members it surveyed said they’d be travelling to a sunspot in 2009, with many of those people indicating that they’d already redeemed award miles for March Break trips to destinations like Florida, Arizona and California.
Looking at the global picture, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC -- http://www.wttc.org ) has called on the US government to work with that country’s travel and tourism industry to ensure its long-term sustainability.
While the declines that the industry is expected to post in the coming year are definitely concerning, the WTTC’s president and CEO, Jean-Claude Baumgarten points out that:
“Despite the decline due to the present economic crisis, [travel and tourism’s] contribution to total GDP will still be around 9.5% in 2009 -- above the global average -- and it should account for an estimated 9.7% of national employment, as against a 7.6% share worldwide.”
In fact, research by the WTTC shows that the United States’ travel and tourism economy GDP is predicted to grow by 3.5% per annum between 2009 and 2019, to US$2,358 billion, or 9.8% of total GDP, with travel and tourism economy employment growth forecast at 1.2% over the same period to 15.6 million -- 10.1% of total employment in the US.
Says Baumgarten:
“These figures highlight just how far-reaching the impact of travel and tourism is across the wider US economy. Moreover, past experience has shown that travel and tourism is extremely resilient and should be recognized by governments as a means of stimulating growth and kick-starting the economy once the crisis eases.”
Obviously a forecast is just that, but you’d think if things were really as bad as what we’re being told every night on the news, this one would be a lot worse.
So I think I’m going stay positive … maybe a little confused, but my glass will be half full.