(Editor’s Note: Most of you have already signed up to receive this info directly, however, just in case, am reprinting this last update in the HSMAI blog for you to do so. JWF)
VISIT FLORIDA President and CEO, Chris Thompson, participated in a number of media interviews this week including USA Today, Associated Press, Collective Travel Radio, Gannett, Sunshine State News, Capital News Service, and WTXL-TV in Tallahassee. In addition, he participated in the Governor's Economic Task Force working group on Communications and attended the BP Claims Process working group meeting.
Chief Marketing Officer, Will Seccombe, addressed the Florida Association of Broadcasters during their annual meeting and highlighted the "Share a Little Sunshine" campaign. He also participated in a CNN panel discussion on the impact of the oil spill on tourism.
In this week's Florida Live TV, Kevin Mims traveled to Blackwater River, Navarre Beach, Destin, Blountstown, St. Andrews State Park, Monticello, Topsail Hill and Sandestin. He posted nine videos, several blogs posts and 100 images on Flickr. Consumer response has been outstanding with this week's videos receiving more than 4,500 views. Since launch on June 1, Florida Live TV videos have received more than 17,000 views on YouTube. See for yourself at Florida Live.
Travel Leaders, the largest travel agency franchisor in North America, promoted Florida Live to its network of 370 travel agents via its Network News, Results and Daily News internal publications. In addition, they featured a special Florida newsfeed on their Twitter and Facebook pages. We are currently reaching out to other travel trade organizations to encourage similar campaigns.
Current advertising efforts have increased traffic to VISITFLORIDA.com so much that we are seeing the largest audience numbers ever recorded on the site. Over the last five months, the site has averaged more than 500,000 visitors per month.
Together with FRLA, VISIT FLORIDA sponsored a full page, four-color ad promoting Florida's beaches in yesterday's edition of the New York Times. The "Florida is Open for Business" ad drove readers to Florida Live at VISITFLORIDA.com to, "find live beach cams, up-to-the-minute local updates, daily video, great deals, live weather and real photos of real people enjoying the Sunshine State right now. " A companion advertorial emphasized that, "most of Florida's coast is completely unaffected by the spill" and "all those unique attractions that have made Florida our country's vacation capital remain as compelling as ever." Both pages feature photographs of great Florida destinations and vacation activities.
This week, print, online and broadcast reports supported by the work of our team generated 466 million impressions from media outlets that included, among others, CNN, CNBC and CBS News. VISIT FLORIDA is now sending regular updates to our PR counterparts at DMOs and tourism related businesses, keeping them informed of our crisis response.
VISIT FLORIDA was recently honored as the first statewide destination marketing organization (DMO) to achieve international accreditation through the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (DMAP) with Destination Marketing Association International (DMAI). The accreditation recognizes our excellence in best practices and leadership among statewide DMOs. These are the best practices that will help carry us through this oil spill crisis.
We held an all-industry webinar yesterday where Chris Thompson, President and CEO gave an update on the Deepwater Horizon Response Campaign and Florida Live. He also spoke about our consumer research efforts, as well as our evolving Hurricane Preparedness Plan as it relates to the oil spill. We answered questions from several of the 298 participants. If you weren't able to join us, a recorded version of the webinar is available on VISITFLORIDA.org.
RESOURCES
We will continue to post daily information to www.SunshineMatters.org and encourage you to sign up to receive e-mail alerts when new posts are added.
Copyright 2010 VISIT FLORIDA® 2540 W. Executive Center Circle, Ste. 200; Tallahassee, FL 32301 850-488-5607
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