National Extension Tourism Conference 2011

Well today was jam packed with great sessions at this years National Extension Tourism Conference. This is one I try not to miss and have been to the one in Vermont 4 years ago, Utah 2 years back and now in South Carolina. The US has a different system than Canada with an embedded support to work with regions/communities and operators in rural tourism. Their Land Grant institutions have what is called an extension arm - where professionals from the Universities work as agents of change within their regions in a variety of specialist areas. Earlier this week, a conference was held for the National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals (March 7-9th) here in Charleston as well.

I first became familiar with this system when I did my PhD at Michigan State. My research work with the Recreation and Tourism Resources Center was in rural tourism in the Michigan Thumb region. I often wish that we had an equivalent system, at least with the same structural supports within Canada. Our system in Canada seems to place Universities within communities and regions, but there is not a clearly articulated mandate to serve and work with them for change. While it can be found in mission statements, there are few funded structures to enable things to happen long term. My position is one however, at VIU, that was created as a long term strategy to create some of these links. If I could only have a team of specialists like down here though...

I digress - the conference. Today was packed with good sessions - here are some tidbits to take away for those who can't be here:

David Sheatsley was the keynote this am (US Travel). He gave an overview of some research on visitation to the US. Their total domestic visits have been increasing and are expected to hit a new record in 2012 as Americans are encouraged to travel closer to home. Consumer confidence is on the upswing - but is still only at 70.4% whereas 90% is considered healthy - so a ways to go yet. There is a gap between the perception of affordability of travel and people's money available to do so - this gap is biggest for boomers. One of the issues, not surprising, is the effect that fuel prices is having on an already weakened system. For example, of the top concerns that may impact travel, the top ones were all financial - including gas prices, airline costs whereas the impact of personal debt on travel has been decreasing in significance. The reasons people are indicating they may travel more this year? 40% to relieve stress, 40% for a break from home or work, 39% they have additional time, 39% to reconnect with family or friends, 25% had put off travel due to the state of the economy and 15% due to household budget improving. The outlook for 2011? People will continue to stay close to home, but will drive further. High fuel costs will impact household budgets so value and frugality will reign.

I attended a series of sessions on the use of mapping to assist in tourism planning and marketing. These were useful, but I found myself wondering if costly investments into developing databases and then maintaining them are not better done in the private sector. One session on Market Maker was quite interesting - it connects producers to buyers of agricultural products - but they have been expanding the application across various states and into new sectors, such as agritourism.

Carol Patterson and Miles Phillips did a great workshop on the "Good Bad and the Ugly of tourism" complete with sound effects. Based on numerous experiences, they outlined how operators creatively used their ideas to either produce successful ventures or to "gain experience". Too many examples to share - but you can check out Carol's information for regular updates and newsletters.

And, the last of the day was a great workshop on how Ohio extension agents have been introducing social networking applications to agritourism businesses. Julie Fox provided details on their introduction sessions and their hands on workshops and outlined some of the lessons learned. They have piloted their approach a number of times and I kept thinking that this is something we need to build in as a collaborative approach between students and operators in BC. A couple of the tips they share at their experiential workshop are:

1. Know what people are saying about you (online already) Use google alerts, social mention to find out and get alerts from online mention of your business name

2. Become familiar with popular media sites such as twitter, face book, YouTube and linked in - and think about how they could work with your business;

3. Get engaged in great content - give people something to talk about - photos, videos, chats, polls, stories

4. Get the customer engaged - have them tell their stories, ask for feedback on new products, and build a relationship with them

5. Integrate social media into your marketing plan

Well, I will update more tomorrow and am presenting on how tourism needs to be embedded in broader rural development strategies, like amenity based rural development.