“Table of Eight” – February 17, 2010 – Part 2

The HSMAI-South Florida chapter’s monthly meeting was held Wednesday. Alfredo Gonzalez, VP of International Tourism, GFLCVB, and Virginia Sheridan, President, M. Silver Associates Public Relations, spoke about international tourism and travel trends. In addition, we heard from Biki Khurana, Managing Director of Condor. The airline will be starting flights between FLL and Frankfurt on May 14th with 540 seats weekly.

In Part 1 of our “Table of Eight” column, I highlighted Alfredo’s remarks. This is a continuation of that first column. (As previously mentioned, comments are from my notes; the presentation slides will be posted on www.hsmaisouthflorida.org under resources.)

After Alfredo spoke, we heard from Biki Khurana about the tourism potential of the German market. Some positives: the favorable exchange rate, fairly strong economy (only 3% down), their love of travel, and their 6 weeks annual vacation time. This market is increasingly using the internet (up to 56%), but most still go to a travel agent to book once they’ve done their research. For this market, it is important to work with the various tour operators (there are 5 big ones as most have consolidated). A recent travel agent survey indicated 82% sell Florida most frequently (50% of people coming to a t.a. book a trip to the U.S). In addition, Biki stressed that we should have a German language website to reach this market.

Virginia Sheridan talked about changes since her last presentation at the October GFLCVB’s marketing meeting. She noted that even experts disagree on whether we were or are still in a recession or a depression. Overall there is a general feeling of a more positive outlook for 2010. There’s some good news, but still facing some problems (tight credit; high unemployment; less time off; shorter vacations, et al). 2009 was bad for all areas of travel especially the airline industry (and hotel occupancies were down 55%).
What is the 2010 outlook? More/lot of the same; recovery in 3 to 4 years; consumer spending is stabilizing; ancillary fees are increasing which people are adjusting to in the airline industry (but don’t like in the hotel industry – creating more “shopping around”).

Some good news: some small increases in domestic/biz/leisure travel; increased travel from Brazil(Latin America);Luxury travel has increased some 5-8%;gas prices will not have much of an impact; Destinations catering to luxury vacationers will see an end to visitor declines; More “escapism” travel.

Here are some of the top tourism trends mentioned by Virginia: social groups; celebrations; hospitality industry incentives, e.g. credits, discounts, etc.; low cost airlines attracting the biz travelers; average number of hotel nights may increase; unpredictable booking cycles making it harder to forecast; consumers taking the deal – value is the #1 factor in travel; “Perkonomics” – rewarding your best customers differently than your other customers as loyalty programs become more customized; the growing importance of “doing the right thing” – social and environmental responsibility.

As buzz words come and go, we always hear them first from Virginia. Back a couple years ago, at another of her presentations, we learned the word “mancation” (and you can read about this in one of my old columns) which then became as popular (and overused) as the later phrase “staycation”. So keep your ears open for the “new normal” and for “perkonomics”, as I’m sure you’ll begin to see both these terms every where in the near future. Thanks Virginia for bringing us up to date.

Just a reminder: Send in your news for inclusion in the next “Around Town” column. Best, Julie Wernick, HSMAInsider.