Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The National Council of Attractions (NCA) was formed in 1976 to unify the widely diverse travel
attractions segment within U.S. Travel, which includes historic, cultural, scienti
c, scenic, natural,
themed, and entertainment attractions, as well as attraction-related service organizations. The NCA
has more than 200 members.
U.S. Travel supports four major marketing programs:
This internationally acclaimed program brings
together international tour operators and journalists from over 70 nations with U.S. travel
suppliers, yielding the sale of more than $3.5 billion worth of U.S. travel product and
invaluable media promotion of travel and tourism in America. See
www.ustravel.org/
events/international-pow-wow
.
2. The Marketing Outlook Forum.
1. Discover America International PowWow.
This is an annual educational event that is an intensive two-day
series of seminars preparing travel industry leaders to understand and deal with travel issues. It
provides detailed projections concerning future travel patterns. See
www.ustravel.org/events/
marketing-outlook-forum
.
3. Discover America National Domestic Travel Marketing Program.
This ongoing, multifaceted,
nationwide campaign is designed to encourage U.S. consumers to see more of their country
through themed promotions, electronic travel information, and widespread use of the title logo,
which reinforces the urge to see America. See
www.ustravel.org/marketing/discover-america/
discoveramerica-com
.
4. Discover America Pavilions.
This international marketing effort is spearheaded by the Discover
America brand campaign. See
www.ustravel.org/events/discover-america-pavilions
.
Visit both the U.S. Travel and Discover America Web sites at
www.ustravel.org
and
www
.discoveramerica.com
to explore these organizations in more detail.
REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Regional tourism organizations have the goal of attracting tourists to their speci
c geographic
region. There are several types of regional associations, such as multicountry, multistate, and
multicounty. Examples range from PATA, which covers the Paci
c region of the world, to groups
such as Travel South USA, which promotes travel in the southern states, to the West Michigan
Tourist Association, which promotes the West Michigan region from Northwest Indiana to the
Straits of Mackinac, encompassing the entire half of the Lower Peninsula. Pennsylvania probably
has more regional tourism organizations within its boundaries than any other state; its state
tourism of
ce supported 71 different agencies with regional marketing partnership grants or
promotion assistance grants in 2009 to 2010.
STATE AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Because states/provinces are politically independent from their national governments and often
possess highly unique market appeals, they usually establish an independent state/province tourism
department to promote and coordinate development of the destinations. Similarly, larger cities having
distinct tourism appeals will often put in place a DMO to promote and help develop tourism for the
city/community. Often such community DMOs are highly effective as they bene
t from high levels of
commitment to the tourism cause of their community.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search