We recently attended the 2019 NYS Tourism Conference in Buffalo, New York and interviewed presenters, conference attendees, and Tourism Excellence Award winners. My interviews focused on the conference themes of inclusion, fostering community engagement, and “tourism is everybody’s business”, as well as key takeaways from the conference. This episode focuses on some of the award…
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Canada and Canadian travelers are on our minds a lot at Break the Ice Media. Through our Canadian Co-op PR program, and previously through Cross Border Showcase and A Welcome Surprise, we’ve been working to make Canadians aware of Upstate New York as an easy travel destination. In 2014, we were first brought on to…
Read MoreDavid Gilbert serves as president and CEO of Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, an organization dedicated to making Greater Cleveland a premier destination for amateur sporting events, and Destination Cleveland, the region’s convention and visitors bureau. The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission is responsible for attracting, promoting, and managing major amateur athletic events, and for creating sporting…
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When it comes to destination marketing, most tourism organizations are working with limited budgets, small staff size and big goals. In order to reach, engage and encourage large audiences to visit your destination, you have to be strategic with your marketing plan and spend. That means choosing marketing tactics that provide the biggest bang for…
Read MoreNicole Mahoney is the host for the Destination on the Left podcast. She is also the CEO of Break The Ice Media, the travel and tourism marketing agency she founded in 2009. Break The Ice Media specializes in working for clients in the travel and tourism industries, through the strategic use of public relations, social…
Read MoreGetting influencers and travel writers to pay attention is a great way to showcase what you are offering to the travel and tourism public. Bringing them onsite and having them write about your organization can be a big public relations win. But how do you make the connection? Email and phone calls are hit-or-miss at…
Read MoreWhy are people interested in traveling to your destination? Finding out the “why” makes marketing more precise and leads to more visitors and ergo, more revenue. Finding out the “why” gets beyond lumping people into demographic categories. It helps us understand what motivates them and what could potentially motivate them to choose us. Our guest…
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A first-hand immersion with bloggers and the five ‘what I know for sure’ take-aways The Finger Lakes Region of New York recently hosted bloggers for both Travel Media Showcase (TMS) and the Travel Bloggers Exchange (TBEX) when they brought their conferences to the western part of New York. We embarked on nine days of touring…
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At the heart of media relations – especially when it comes to Travel PR – is building relationships with the writers, bloggers and influencers that you want to work with. And while email pitches, travel shows, and even the phone call all have their purpose, there is one more public relations tool destinations need to…
Read MoreAs businesses, we live or die on data. Understanding the market, understanding who is coming to our destination, who is interested but doesn’t know enough to make a decision – these pieces of information are vital to our ability to thrive in travel and tourism. But gathering and interpreting this data is a challenge for…
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