Hats off to these four ambitious marketing programs.

July 22, 2024

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool — @ 10:00 am

Ambitious marketing programs that succeed are the envy of marketers everywhere. This is especially true for marketers that face relentless internal roadblocks when trying to shepherd clever ideas to the goal line.

The most common roadblock? Execution logistics. Trying to bring BIG, BOLD ideas to life can be crippling for many companies, despite their dreams of being perceived as cool and clever.

And yet, some organizations DO manage it. This is why, when we see ambitious marketing programs thriving out in the wild, passionate marketers everywhere stand up and cheer.

These four had me cheering recently.

BARTER FOR A PIZZA? YES, PLEASE.

At NYC’s Unregular Pizza, the food is delicious enough to have expanded to four locations in just a few years (ahem, see photo above and tell me you’re not drooling). But that’s not what earned them a spot on this list.

Nestled into Unregular’s DNA is a barter program. Folks can propose to barter something in exchange for a pizza through the restaurant’s website. Barter applications are reviewed regularly and selected entrants are invited in to make the swap. Recent barters have included cartoon illustrations, rosemary sourdough bread, a rare 1929 Standing Liberty Quarter, a handmade bracelet, and an Irish-themed t-shirt, just to name a few.

It’s an utterly brilliant program, yielding social media gold, community engagement, and standout marketing power. Even better, it’s authentic to their brand: Unregular got its start in the owner’s home kitchen during the Covid-19 pandemic. He bartered his pizza creations with friends and neighbors as a way to bring some joy to the lockdown period, and when it transitioned into a “real” business, he kept the barter concept intact. Unregular, indeed.

MANGO-SCENTED NEWSPAPER? DELICIOUS.

Mango season is a thing, and in India the scent of fresh mangos is synonymous with summer. So when Indian quick commerce delivery platform Swiggy Instamart (similar to Instacart or DoorDash in the US) wanted to grab attention for their services, they leveraged that positive association in a BIG way:

They created front page newspaper ads that actually smelled like mangos.

With just 16 words of copy – and two of those the brand name itself – they leveraged two powerful senses to tickle the human desire for instant gratification. The glorious, juicy, and vibrant close up of peeled mangos, the seductive scent of the fruit, and the prominent key selling proposition “delivered in 10 minutes” all combined to make the ad beautifully done.

Was it expensive and complicated to put a scented ad on the front page of the Times of India, one of that country’s largest newspapers? For sure. But the payoff was worth it. People who’d overlook “normal” ads would be bound to sniff this one just out of curiosity. And they’d also be likely to share it with others (“here, smell this!”) because of the novelty. Hands down, a sweet success.

ODD JOBS IN TASMANIA? SIGN US UP.

The marketers of Tourism Tasmania are historically bold and sassy in their campaigns…like, they actually brand their winter as “The Off Season,” which gets an extra cheer from me. So it’s not terribly surprising to find them on this list for one reason or another. And this time, it’s for their Odd Jobs Program.

Yes, you can head to Tasmania to become a Wombat Walker and take this lil’ guy out for his daily fitness regimen. You can also become a Cave Conductor, Oyster Organizer, Paranormal Investigator, Puffer Nut, Sauna Stoker, Soaksmith, Star Seeker, Truffle Snuffler, or Wine Whisperer.

These 10 unusual experiences let people “swap their day job for an odd job,” which makes for enriching, memorable, and sometimes hilarious vacations. The campaign anchor was gathering submissions to award 10 lucky folks an all expenses paid trip to Tasmania to take part in their dream odd job, but the experiences are open to anyone who wants to make it part of their visit to the island, which gives the program marketing legs and staying power.

The landing page for the Odd Jobs campaign is just perfectly done – clean, clever, and provocative. And did anyone else notice that the collection of experiences just happens to highlight the diverse offerings of Tasmania…spa, culinary, wine, culture, landscape, nature, animals, agriculture, and more? <all the savvy marketers in the room raised their hands>

REWARD TOURISTS’ CLIMATE-FRIENDLY BEHAVIOR? SMART.

Copenhagen gets the brass ring here for ambitious marketing programs. 24 (so far) attractions in the city are participating in a trial tourism program called CopenPay. This program essentially gives tourists free stuff in exchange for helping clean up, protect, or maintain the city’s landscape, ecology, and/or environment.

Volunteer at an urban farm? Get a free lunch. Arrive by bike or public transportation to a restaurant? Get a free drink. Commit to collecting waste from the harbor? Get a free kayak rental. Bring some plastic waste to a museum? Turn it into a piece of art at a free workshop.

These and 20 other climate-friendly experiences are available to anyone, whether tourist or local.

The trial program of CopenPay is in full swing and runs for about a month, through August 11. This is super smart because they’ve built in a defined, expected pause to step back and evaluate what needs to be tweaked to make it logistically viable for the long term. And for a trial program, the landing page is really quite good. That bodes well for the success of the program, because if it proceeds to become an ongoing thing, I’m certain the marketing tools will only get better.

CopenPay is the kind of seemingly complex program that would normally die a painful death from execution logistics long before it got off the ground. But if you drill down to the actual elements themselves, it’s basically 24 attractions who’ve created offers that work for THEM within a general framework for a limited period of time…plus a landing page. The international media attention for this “little trial” has been stellar. And the best part? It could have been just as successful with only 10 experiences, and it will be equally fabulous when there are 50. It’s the concept—and the fact that they figured out how to bring it to life—that’s so magical.

All four of these ambitious marketing programs deserve our applause because they overcame what had to be a myriad of challenges to make it to the goal line. I wasn’t there for each concept’s ideation, but sweet lordy, I can hear the objections in my head…

What about insurance? Is that sanitary? Who’s going to read all the applications? It costs too much. Who’s going to manage it? What if we don’t get enough attractions to participate? How do we make sure all our partners who participate get equal ROI? Shouldn’t it be year round? Wouldn’t this be better as an app? We have no money to build an app. People will abuse this and take advantage. And on and on and on and on.

There is ALWAYS a way to bring a brilliant idea to life, no matter how complex it seems. Do it for a limited time, get a partner, start with one element and grow it over time, extend the runway, make it a contest…with the right attitude, there’s just always a way. Study the four examples here for inspo. There’s some serious cleverness to learn from within each program.

But for goodness sake, when you finally do shepherd an ambitious marketing program to the goal line, make sure you have damn good photos to promote it. Here are tips and more tips for that.

Related helpful advice:

The sweet spot between overthinking and under planning.

How to steal travel marketing ideas.

A brilliant tourism marketing case study.

What inspires word-of-mouth in tourism marketing?

June 16, 2023

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies — @ 1:01 pm

Here’s an example of what inspires word-of-mouth in tourism marketing. Say I brought you a box of chocolates from my trip to Connecticut. That’s nice and you’d thank me.

But say I brought you a box of “single origin cow chocolates” from my trip to Connecticut.

Wait…what?

Suddenly, you have questions. And the answers will likely make you want to share the story with other people – in person, by text, by social media, whatever. And some folks who see/hear it may think it’s cool enough to share with THEIR circle of friends. And so on. And so on.

And voila. Word-of-mouth.

The secret there lies in the phrase “make you want to share the story.” People don’t share boring, ordinary, or typical things. They share things that are new, cool, interesting, unexpected, funny, poignant, or extraordinary.

Thorncrest Farm & Milk House Chocolates is a Connecticut tourism attraction that knocks the word-of-mouth concept out of the park. Though, to be honest, I really don’t think they think of themselves as a “tourism attraction.” They seem to think of themselves more as cow-tenders, which just makes the story even better.

A barn crafted from weatherbeaten grey wood with multiple windows and oversized doors sits against a bluebird sky. This is the home of Thorncrest Farm & Milk House Chocolates, which inspires excellent word-of-mouth in tourism marketing.

At this magical farm – which requires you to leave the paved roads to access – the level of quintessential New England barn and local purveyor adorableness is just perfect. But that’s not the story-sharing headline here. The headline is that they produce a variety of chocolates that each use only a single cow’s milk. Like, you can get chocolates made exclusively with milk from Daydream, Creedance, Supreme, and other special cow ladies so earmarked for the purpose.

Not only that, but the type of chocolates each cow helps produce is determined by the distinctive flavor of her milk. For example, ONLY Daydream’s milk is used for caramels (I’ve had them and can see why), and ONLY Queen’s milk is used for the “Zesty Lime & Licorice” chocolate (they weren’t available when I visited because apparently Queen had the day off).

At the sweet little chocolate shop attached to the barn, visitors can find out which cow’s exclusive chocolates are available that day, depending on who is being milked. And there are a variety of other chocolate confections available too… as well as single origin cow milk, with each bottle branded with the cow’s name.

You can build your own box of chocolates by the piece and – this is my favorite part – they put a full menu in each box that fully describes each chocolate and which cow is connected to it. So if you’re giving it to someone as a gift, they get the whole story.

What was in the box I assembled during my visit? Clockwise here, from the top left: Daydream’s Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel, Supreme’s White Chocolate Raspberry Cream, Creedance’s Milk Maid Irish Cream (with a Bailey’s ganache inside, of course), Creedance’s Dark Chocolate Madagascar Vanilla, Vail’s Double Cream, and Valor’s Dark Chocolate Double Espresso.

A gold box with pink tissue paper houses six individual chocolates, two milk, three dark, and one white one shaped like a heart with red designs on it.

There’s also a deep and effective amount of authentic brand integrity everywhere you turn on the property. For example, they tell their story – amidst fun facts – with a collection of laminated signs arranged on the barn wall. Kudos to them for that…a high-tech video screen would be out of place here. The laminated signs scream homegrown, slow-paced, personal attention, and loving care, which is precisely the vibe they apply to managing their cows and their entire operation. Indeed, those laminated signs reminded me of the fabulous dairy bar in Nova Scotia that labels their biscuit packaging with masking tape.

So let’s break it down: why exactly does this particular tourism attraction inspire word-of-mouth marketing?

They built their business around a unique and unexpected story.
They give people something different to talk about regarding their chocolates. It’s not just that they taste good or have beautiful packaging, which many chocolatiers can claim.
They connect the product to its source in a fun, engaging, and interesting way. The one simple act of naming each chocolate after its source cow tells multiple positive stories about their business practices. Plus, it’s cute.

The result? I’ll always associate my trip to the Litchfield region of Connecticut with this extraordinary place, I’ll never forget it (out of ALL the chocolate shops I’ve visited in my time – and that’s a lot), and yes of course I told my friends about it. So naturally, I stopped by the barn after my purchase to thank the ladies for their efforts.

Chris Miranda, dressed in black with multicolored sneakers, stands next to the barn area where a cow sticks its tongue through the gate to say hello.

Take note of the fact that in everything I just celebrated about this place, I never mentioned if the chocolate is tasty. It DOES happen to be delicious, but THAT’S NOT THE STORY. Their word-of-mouth story is inspired by their branding and operation, not their chocolate quality. The chocolate just has to be good enough to not sabotage the joy a visitor gets from the story. Like, if the chocolate absolutely sucked, it would make the story less impressive and I’d not be inclined to share it. Happily for them, their chocolate is the very opposite of “sucked,” and here we are talking about it.

The Newfoundland Chocolate Company – obviously based in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada – also has delicious chocolate, and yet that’s also not THEIR tourism attraction word-of-mouth story.

Visitors to this Canadian province are universally struck by the distinctive (heartwarmingly quirky?) culture, style, and even language…even though they speak English.

The first time I was there and someone said to me “I dies at you,” I definitely had no clue what they were saying. And as I spoke to more locals, the joy of trying to decipher conversations that included phrases like “who knit ya?” became increasingly charming and hilarious. I wanted to bottle some of that joy and take it home for family and friends to experience too.

Imagine my excitement, then, when after delivering a keynote speech at the Hospitality Newfoundland & Labrador annual conference, someone gifted me these chocolate bars:

Chris Miranda holds up a collection of chocolate bars from the Newfoundland Chocolate Company. The six bars are in brown packaging with white typeface, and feature a variety of sayings. This is an excellent example of how to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing.

And that’s when I was introduced to the Newfoundland Chocolate Company, who has made a brilliant art out of comingling tourism branding with a scrumptious product.

Believe me, I’m not trying to minimize the thought and care that goes into making their chocolates. But the word-of-mouth headline here is the packaging and the product merchandising. Indeed, they have:

A wide variety of boxed collections that align chocolates with tourism locations around the island of Newfoundland, such as lighthouses, places to explore, and this one featuring shorelines with quiet coves:

The left photo shows the exterior of a box of chocolates called the Quiet Cove Collection, and the right image shows a map of Newfoundland with a picture of each chocolate in the box aligned with a quiet cove along the island's shoreline.

They also have bars wrapped to celebrate the vibrantly colorful and iconic houses of Newfoundland (like the ones on Jelly Bean Row):

A collection of six chocolate bars in a clear package, each with a picture of a different color house on it: orange, pink, yellow, blue, red, and tan.

And of course, those signature NL Sayings bars, whose collection includes a multitude of phrases that allow people to tell stories to the folks back home when they gift these bars as vacation souvenirs:

A collection of six chocolate bars, each with a green, white, and pink wrapper featuring black type with a saying on it. This is an excellent example by the Newfoundland Chocolate Company to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing, as each phrase is a distinctive saying by Newfoundlanders, such as "I dies at you."

The really magical thing is the NL’ers take great pride in their distinctive culture, so they ALSO love buying, sharing, and gifting products like the NL Sayings bars. They’re not just for tourists.

This is a very different approach than Thorncrest Farm & Milk House Chocolates, but this particular tourism attraction ALSO inspires word-of-mouth marketing with their strategy:

They’ve inextricably linked their own story to the destination’s unique story and culture, which will resonate with any visitor who was charmed by it (as I was).
They focus on the things that set Newfoundland & Labrador apart from other destinations, like…you literally can’t get a “Jigs & Reels Collection” of chocolates (nor a chocolate bar that says “arse on dat”) anywhere else in the world.
They make it absurdly easy for visitors to use their products to tell the story of NL to friends and family when they get back home. Why bring home just a map to show where you’ve been when you can show a map that tells a story through chocolates?

When the Newfoundland Chocolate Company was founded, they originally set out to “create great chocolate that tells a story about Newfoundland & Labrador.” Y’all, they nailed it.

The bottom line is that there’s more than one way to inspire word-of-mouth in tourism marketing. You just have to give people a story worth telling and make it easy for them to tell it. Tell them YOUR story in fun, unique ways. Make it easy for them to take photos and video and remember your story clearly. Make it easy for them to feel good about you.

I may not yet be fluent in the language of Newfoundland, but when it comes to smart branding that inspires word-of-mouth marketing, there’s one thing I know for sure: I loves it.

A brilliant tourism marketing case study.

April 14, 2023

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies — @ 9:02 am

A red British phone box sits among the green rows of grape vines at the Luckett Vineyards in Nova Scotia, which is an example of a brilliant tourism marketing case study.

No one ever expects to find a phone booth in the middle of a vineyard…and that’s what makes this such a brilliant tourism marketing case study. The folks at Nova Scotia’s Luckett Vineyards have scored the brass ring of branding with this creative move. But it’s no fleeting stunt; it has brand and marketing legs for days. And spoiler alert…the phone actually works.

Let’s break down just what makes it so brilliant, especially from a tourism perspective.

It’s totally unique…and let’s be honest, very few ideas actually ARE unique. Most often, ideas billed as “unique” are just riffs on existing ideas. But this one embodies the very definition of the word unique. An iconic British phone box (which we call a phone booth here in the US), set smack in the middle of a vineyard in Nova Scotia? Nobody saw that coming. And that makes everybody pay attention to it.
It sets their marketing photos apart. We’ve all seen gorgeous pictures of vineyards. Many with gorgeous surrounding backdrops. Often with the light catching the landscape just right, and especially at sunrise or sunset. Never with a British phone box featured in the scene. On social media, such photos stop thumbs from scrolling. And in media relations, it catches the interest of journalists.
It provides bragworthy photo opps for guests. Guests share in that halo effect of capturing unique photos…and it does the same thing for their own social media feeds that it does for Luckett’s brand marketing. It makes for a cool photo that a visitor just can’t get elsewhere. And to be quite frank, in this way, it helps establish their presence as a tourist destination. Visitors to Nova Scotia who want to explore the province’s wine country in the Annapolis Valley region make Luckett a must-do stop. And if they stumbled upon it accidentally…they’ll never forget it.
It provides a surprise experience for guests. Wait… you thought it was just a photo opp? So might guests…until they go check it out. It’s actually a working original rotary-style telephone, and guests can make free calls from it to anywhere in North America. (TBH, just the experience of using a rotary phone is a surprise experience for many of the younger generations… are there instructions on how to dial? LOL)
OH THE BRAND EXTENSIONS! Luckett is the only brand in the world who can credibly name a collection of wines Phone Box Red, Phone Box White, and new for 2023, Phone Box Rosé. Besides the fact that these are delicious wines even for locals, what tourist who’s visited the winery and taken photos and called home on that rotary phone WOULDN’T also want to take home a wine called “Phone Box?” It’s not easy for a winery to get people to remember the names of all their different types of wines. These are unforgettable.
It’s an opportunity to have fun…everywhere. Their website’s home page touts “wines worth calling home about.” It’s little things like that which make this entire concept so fabulous. There’s always a way to weave the phone box subtly and cleverly into the brand’s marketing. And kudos to Luckett, they never devolve into the realm of cheesy with it. Everything is done with an edgy sophistication.

And the real gem of a lesson behind this brilliant tourism marketing case study? There was no grand master branding plan involved when they originally decided to do this. It was just a fun, cool idea tossed out one day by their vineyard manager, Marcel Kolb. It just seemed like something whimsical that would give visitors something unexpected to remember. But the owner, Pete Luckett (a British Canadian who was born in Nottingham, England), loved the idea and immediately started making calls to buy one for the vineyard.

All the other nitty gritty details that make this such a brilliant marketing case study came later. It all started with “this is cool, let’s just make it happen.” And then – very wisely – they built upon it to give it brand equity. If they had just stuck the phone box out there among the vines, and never absorbed it into their DNA, it would lack the branding power it has today. Instead, they gave it a stronger foothold and made it part of their identity. Not ALL of their identity. Just enough to set them apart. Super smart.

Parting tip: if you go visit, try their Fizz, which is my fave. But then again, I’m a notorious bubbly drinker, so perhaps I’m biased.

And here are a few related topics you may find of interest:

Six cool examples of marketing.

The secret to a great tourism photo.

Four brilliant and unexpected marketing partnerships.

ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

February 13, 2023

Filed under: AI in Marketing, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Website Strategies, Customer Service, Crisis Communications, Effective Presentations, Writing Tips, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Social Media, Effective Communication — @ 11:24 am

Here’s why tourism marketers need tips for using ChatGPT, an online program that engages in human-like dialogue based on a prompt: because we’re all too damn busy to waste time. And messing around with a new tool we’re not sure we’d even use feels a lot like wasting time. Is it worth it? Should you invest the time to get familiar with ChatGPT because that investment of time will pay off?

Short answer: yes. You need to know what this tool can REALLY do before you decide to embrace or reject it. It has some uses that may surprise you.

So let’s jumpstart your learning curve with some practical tips for how tourism marketers can explore the benefits of using ChatGPT.

First, let’s get one thing straight. ChatGPT is just a resource and a tool. You’ve got a lot of tools to help you do your job. Google is a tool. Adobe Illustrator is a tool. Semrush is a tool. But the relentless media frenzy around ChatGPT has given it near-mystical properties that make it seem more potent than that. Chill out, y’all. It’s just a tool. It’s one more resource in your toolbox to potentially help you do your job better, smarter, and faster.

And like all tools [she says sheepishly, aware that she barely knows how to use 5% of the available apps on her iPhone], its usefulness is only as powerful as your knowledge of how to harness it. I’ll never forget years ago when an accounting mentor said to me, “If you’re doing any manual calculations whatsoever or taking a long time to manipulate data in an Excel spreadsheet, then there’s a shortcut, command, or function you just don’t know about. Excel is designed to make life easier. If it’s making it harder, go learn more about Excel.”

ChatGPT is the same. When you first try it out, you won’t be savvy at knowing how to coax the most effective results from it. So you’ll plug in a few basic things and the outcomes will be unimpressive. And then, because you’re super busy and there’s no mandate that says you need to use ChatGPT, you’ll dismiss it as unhelpful and go back to the familiar tools in your toolbox.

But what if I told you that…

You could paste a particularly legalese-sounding section of a vendor contract into ChatGPT and say “explain this to me like I’m an 8^th grader”…and it does?

It could produce a style guide for all your team members to follow, after you feed it several samples of a brand’s voice to analyze?

It could take your 400-word bio and make it fit that directory listing’s 100-word requirement in just one click?

It could give you a substantive list of story ideas for your content calendar…and then organize them into a seasonal schedule…and then create first drafts of each piece of content, in different formats for social channels, blog posts, email newsletters…and even website copy that’s optimized for the keywords you require?

It can indeed do all those things and more…if you know how to prompt it effectively.

Janette Roush is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Digital, for NYC & Company, which is the official DMO/CVB for New York City. And she’s one of ChatGPT’s early adopters and passionate champions who is learning to master the “art of the prompt.”

“If you want to get ChatGPT to give you useful answers, the key is in how you formulate your prompt,” Roush told me. “I was once advised to think of it like an omniscient three-year-old. It knows everything under the sun, but it doesn’t know who YOU are, WHY you need to know, and WHO you’re trying to talk to. You need to prompt it with details like that for it to return a result that’s written in the context you need. Otherwise the result will be very generic and way less useful to your purpose.”

Roush has honed her prompting skills through persistent trial and error. In fact, she even documents her journey with ChatGPT on LinkedIn, making regular posts about prompts she’s tried for a wide variety of uses and the results they’ve produced. (Pro tip: Connect with or follow her there. You won’t regret it.)

Inspired by Roush, I took ChatGPT for a three-hour test drive one morning, just giving it prompts for various tourism-marketing-related things. One thing I quickly learned is that a generic prompt yields a generic answer and specific prompt yields a specific answer. Case in point: Look at how it adjusted its responses for social media captions based upon my specificity:

And it did the same thing as I sought its help to generate story ideas for Northern California:

Are those story ideas all perfect with no need for tweaking? Perhaps not. But did it give me threads to follow where before I had none? Absolutely. And some good ones too.

So, in addition to writing copy, one use of ChatGPT is to think of it like you would a sounding board. Or a brainstorming partner. It can’t ideate on its own (it’s not designed to innovate) but it can work with the prompts you give it to hit you back with starter threads.

Roush shared some spectacular direction on how to prompt ChatGPT as a sounding board in one of her recent LinkedIn posts:

You may be thinking “well, why can’t I just Google stuff like that instead of using ChatGPT?” And you can. But Google (“regular” Google, not the emerging Google Bard version that’s trying to infuse AI into its experience but not quite succeeding as of this writing) will give you a slew of different links for you to go explore and assimilate all the information on your own. And ChatGPT will just…answer you. Not with “here are ten sources you can read to find story ideas” or “here are ten sources to see how other destinations are making themselves an attractive esports destination.” It delivers YOUR story ideas, and tells you how YOUR destination can achieve an attractive esports destination profile.

And then – mind blown – you can direct it to actually WRITE that story about ice skating in Northern California or OUTLINE that strategic plan to develop esports tourism in NYC.

Again…will they be final drafts that need no tweaking? Absolutely not. They will be FIRST drafts, but if you’ve prompted with care, they’ll be pretty damn good first drafts.

And THAT saves you time, which is the whole point of using ChatGPT for marketing assistance.

But wait, you say. When I use Google as a resource tool, I can handpick from among sources on the results pages that I feel are legitimate and credible. Without such references, how do I know the information I’m getting from ChatGPT is accurate?

Folks, I remind you again that ChatGPT is not supposed to be a mystical tool that sees all and knows all. You’ll need to check your facts, just like you would using any other source. Do you really think that something is accurate just because you got it from a source on Google that you consider “credible?” News outlets get details wrong, websites have outdated information, and inaccurate stuff has a way of floating around and perpetuating online. So, ChatGPT is no more nor less credible than any other source you use. And you should do your due diligence on its output when necessary.

And while we’re at it, I should also remind you that most of the output you get from ChatGPT will need tweaking and polish. Even with the absolute best of prompting, there will still be nuances and phrasing you’ll need to infuse. So it can’t hurt to brush up on your writing skills, and these tips will help.

If you want to explore how ChatGPT can potentially help you with your tourism marketing needs but you’re not sure how to begin, Roush offers these four tips to get started:

Commit to a finite time period for practice. You won’t learn how to use any new tool unless you devote time to using it. Roush recommends setting a challenge to yourself, with some kind of accountability built into the period. Take two weeks or a month or whatever, during which you commit to prompting ChatGPT on at least one topic every day. “I challenged myself to post a new ChatGPT insight on LinkedIn every day for a month, and it forced me to think of that tool daily,” she says. “It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but after a while, as various needs arose throughout the day at work, I’d automatically say to myself ‘let me see how ChatGPT would handle that.’ And then I’d dive into prompting.”
Don’t think of it just for help with writing. With accurate prompting, ChatGPT is an excellent resource for organization, explanations, curation, and more. Roush says it’s helped her structure her lesson approach for her work as an Assistant Professor at Hunter College, and it’s helped flesh out her vacation itinerary in Montreal by finding cool things to do nearby to her already-planned stops. “I’ve also used it to help it explain things I don’t fully understand,” she says, “like when I understand 80% of a technical proposal and I want to understand 100% of it. I can ask ChatGPT to explain it to me in layman’s terms.”
Learn to become specific in how you prompt. You won’t be good at this right out of the gate. It takes time and practice to master the art of prompting. When Roush first dabbled in using ChatGPT, she – like most folks – prompted it with “silly things,” just trying out generic questions and commands, and receiving lackluster responses. “It wasn’t until I stumbled upon how to start being more specific that I began to see the possible uses of ChatGPT,” she says. “I had asked it to create an itinerary for my vacation in Montreal and it was pretty vanilla, just hitting all the major tourist sites. But when I fed it my existing itinerary and asked it to suggest enhancement additions using the right prompts for specificity, it really impressed me.”
Let ChatGPT create a style guide for you, so it learns to deliver responses in your own voice. Roush fed it around 40 of her previous LinkedIn posts and asked it to create a writing style guide for her… which it did shockingly well. Now she can instruct ChatGPT to use that guide when asking it to write stuff on her behalf. “It was surprising how well the style guide captured my voice,” she said. “If I had tried to analyze my own work and write up my own style guide, it would have taken forever and probably been less accurate.”

The bottom line is that the more you use it, the more uses you’ll discover for it. And with practice at the art of prompting, you can make ChatGPT something akin to a full-service virtual assistant who brainstorms, writes, organizes, and educates.

Or… not. You may end up hating it, but until you REALLY take it for a lengthy and diverse test drive, how will you ever know?

Related reading: Issac Asimov’s I, Robot. It was written in 1950 and well…here we are, folks.

Hotel amenities can have marketing value.

January 13, 2023

Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool — @ 11:55 am

Travelers expect a lodging property to have a bed and a shower, but hoteliers should look beyond that to offer hotel amenities that also have marketing value. What do I mean by that? I mean the type of things that make a lasting impression. The kind that guests want to photograph and share on social media, and text to friends with an “OMG ISN’T THIS THE COOLEST THING EVER?”

The type of things that transforms guests into ambassadors.

Let’s face it. Travelers in 2023 will STILL be itching to make up for their pandemic travel pause. Call it revenge travel, rebound travel, or restorative travel…no matter the name, it means they’re seeking experiences memorable enough to feel like several vacations in one.

And extraordinary, unexpected amenities are one small yet meaningful way for hotels to deliver such standout memories. Better yet, they don’t have to be expensive or extravagant for either the hotel or the guest. They just need to be unusual enough to make an impression.

Here are five spectacular examples from around the world of hotel amenities that have marketing value:

The Toilet Paper at The View – Lugano, Switzerland

A roll of pink toilet paper sitting on a wood ledge that shows hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The View Lugano

With its breathtaking setting up on a hill overlooking the Lake of Lugano in Switzerland, The View Lugano already offers a lot in the “making memories” department. But with the hotel’s “Tailor Made Services” program, guests can customize nearly every aspect of their stay prior to arrival. And while there are plenty of the usual customizable amenities on the list of options – pillows, champagne in the room, breakfast choices, etc. – one thing is SO unusual, it’s likely a guest will never forget it: you can choose from among five different colors of toilet paper to have in your bathroom. It’s a small detail that makes a huge impact.

The Bookmarks at The Betsy – Miami Beach, Florida

A white colored bookmark (embedded with flower seeds) with a poem written in black sits on a white background, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Betsy

It’s pretty cool (so says this bookworm) that each room at The Betsy in South Beach has its own library, but then there’s the bookmark at turndown. Each night, guests receive a bookmark on their pillow made from recycled paper and wildflowers. Take ‘em home and plant them in your garden, and voila: you now have a tangible and lasting memory of your visit.

The Podcast Booth at The Sinclair – Fort Worth, Texas

The interior of a podcast booth with two chairs, a microphone and other recording equipment, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Sinclair Hotel

Every hotel is looking for ways to make it easier for guests to share their experiences with others. The Sinclair takes it to the next level with a fully-equipped podcast booth for rent during a stay. Open to both guests and the public, this quirky (but brilliant) amenity rents for $50 per session. So, from the hotel’s perspective, over time the investment they made pays for itself. But even if it didn’t…the press coverage alone upon opening earned them a worthy ROI. This is DEFINITELY a hotel amenity that has marketing value, on multiple levels.

The Coffee Maker at the Marriott Hacienda Belen – San Jose, Costa Rica

A traditional coffee maker with a wooden arm and white mesh strainer, showing that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: Marriott Hacienda Belen

Paying homage to the glorious thing that is Costa Rican coffee, the Marriott Hacienda Belen provides some elite guests with a traditional drip coffee maker to use during their stay…and then gifts it to them to take home. It’s such a startling difference from the “tech-ification” of the typical in-room coffee amenity at hotels that it stands out in a lasting way. Not only is it highly Instagrammable and TikTokable, it also taps into the extreme passion of serious coffee enthusiasts. A win-win.

The 3D Cocktails at Fairmont Le Château Frontenac – Quebec City, Canada

A cocktail in an opaque black glass with a 3D model of sugar in the shape of a building sits next to a cocktail glass filled with ice and lemon. This shows that hotel amenities can have marketing value.

Credit: The Fairmont le Chateau Frontenac

Heaven knows that people LOVE snapping and sharing pictures of beautiful cocktails. Indeed, at the time of this writing, the hashtag #cocktails on Instagram had 36 million posts. The Fairmont Le Château Frontenac takes it one step further by making some of their cocktails video-worthy as well. The 3D cocktails feature a small model made of sugar and natural flavors (the one above is a miniature of the hotel itself). Once the liquor is added, the model slowly dissolves to create a perfectly blended cocktail. Delicious drink…delicious marketing.

The point is…not EVERY touchpoint of a guest’s stay needs to provide a snap-to-attention, memorable “wow.” Too many of them would just be desensitizing anyway. But strategic pops of surprise can capture a guest’s heart and make a lasting impression. Hotel amenities that have marketing value can be a low-cost way to do that. I mean, you have to give them toilet paper… why not offer it to them in pink?

For other ideas on how to make a lasting impression on guests, check out these two other resources:

Tiny design details can make big memories in hospitality.

10 Unexpected and fabulous guest service stories.

How to promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically.

December 9, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Marketing Strategies, This is Cool, Spending Budgets Wisely, Branding Strategies — @ 10:43 am

Of course all brands want to promote their good side, but is it possible to promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically? You bet it is. In many cases, there’s an upside to promoting your “bad side.”

The fact is, you’re not perfect and consumers know it. Today’s consumers are savvier than ever, and you know what they want from you? Authenticity. They don’t want you to gloss over your issues and they want to engage with you based on clear expectations. When you do this, it earns their respect. Indeed, TikTok is a channel surging in popularity precisely because it’s a home for authentic, unpolished content.

Many brands have leaned into this sentiment, finding ways to turn a negative into a positive. And in doing so, they reap the rewards…not just in engagement but often also in revenue.

Here are four strategic examples of organizations – from various industries – who promote their brand’s weaknesses strategically with great success.

Sun-Maid: Candy is better than raisins and we know it.

Who wants raisins in their trick-or-treating haul? No one, that’s who. And yet, for years, Sun-Maid tried to promote their raisins as a healthy alternative to Halloween candy. Recently, they finally realized that’s an uphill battle they’ll never win. As marketing director Fernando Herrara says:

So, they began a series of annual Halloween marketing activations and video campaigns to position Sun-Maid raisins as a trick-or-treat villain, scaring kids everywhere. The fun twist gets folks to laugh with them and communicates a cool, authentic vibe for the brand. Most recently, the brand took over an entire town, complete with Raisin Zombies and a ton of interactive elements. See the video and read about the seriously impressive results here.

Vancouver Island: Come here for the rainstorms.

Unless deliberately engaging in winter activities like skiing, travelers most often wish for sunny warm weather on vacation. But this creates a challenge for destinations, splitting their annual tourism calendar into high seasons and low seasons. That’s not ideal, as a destination wants (and needs) year-round economic stability. And if tourism is a key driver of their economy, they must make low season more attractive to visitors while still managing expectations and providing a worthwhile experience.

On the west coast of Canada, British Columbia’s Vancouver Island is far from a sunny warm climate during November through February. Yet, it’s also far from being considered a “low season” in the tourism industry because it’s Storm Season.

Two people in yellow rain gear stand at the edge of the ocean with rough seas as part of the Wickaninnish Inn's Storm Watching package, which is an excellent example of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically.

Winter storms on this coast are breathtaking and dramatic, and the region has transformed storm watching into a key attraction during Storm Season. Properties like Tofino’s luxurious Wickaninnish Inn have made a booming business out of Storm Watching Packages from November through February. Guests get outfitted with full rain gear and are treated to a host of cozy and warm amenities when they come in from the storm. And with average nightly rates from CAD $553 – $833, it’s hard to believe that would be considered low or off season.

Hockey Legend Denis Potvin: I don’t suck…buy my socks.

As sports rivalries go, the hockey divide between the New York Islanders and New York Rangers fans ranks among the most intense. So much so that Ranger fans are STILL pissed about something legendary NY Islander Denis Potvin did to one of the Ranger players back in 1979.

How do we know they’re still pissed about it? Because to this day, more than 40 years later, Ranger fans still chant – loudly, as one – POTVIN SUCKS every time the Rangers play the Islanders. And yet Denis Potvin retired in 1988.

It seems that after 40 years of being booed, Denis has finally figured out a way to earn their respect…if not exactly shut them up. He launched a collection of “Potvin Socks.”

Three pairs of Denis "Potvin Socks" in orange, blue, and white, which are excellent examples of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically.

Ranger fans may still hate both Denis and the Islanders, but there’s no denying this bold and sassy move adds some fun spice to the rivalry. And the best part? A portion of the proceeds from each sale goes to the NY Islanders children’s foundation. Come ON, Ranger fans… it’s for the kids! Get them here.

Destinations Everywhere: Mud is good clean fun.

Colorado. New York. Vermont. Utah. New Hampshire. Maine. And a slew of other creative destinations have aligned with the motto “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Mountainous destinations with snowy winters end up with early spring seasons that are a muddy mess. As the snow and ice melts and runs off down the mountains into the surrounding areas, there’s simply mud everywhere. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t make for attractive tourism brochure photos.

Unless… we make mud the “reason to come?”

A land rover car driving on muddy terrain in a forested area with blue sky, which is an excellent example of how to promote your brand's weaknesses strategically by capitalizing on mud season.

Mud season packages and activities can offer a compelling draw for tourists, and the concept of “mud” has a wide latitude. There’s mud outdoors, like you’d experience with off-road driving. But there’s also mud treatments in spas, mud pie, muddy cocktails, even “get dirty in the mud” team-building activities for groups and weddings. I mean, what bridal party doesn’t want to enjoy a tug of war and obstacle course in the mud as part of their lower-priced wedding package because it’s not high season?

Mud season is not a new tourism angle, but it sure is popular with the media. So even if consumers don’t book, it has legit marketing value and good press never goes to waste. I’ll never forget when, years ago, Redpoint orchestrated an entire mud season campaign for the New England Inns & Resorts Association. Dozens of the association’s member hotels participated by offering creative mud-themed packages for consumers. And one of them told me that a gent called their reservation line to inquire about the mud package after seeing it here in the newspaper…and he ended up booking a $3,500 engagement package before getting off the call!

That just further proves that PR is essential in tourism marketing.

The bottom line is that even though you naturally want to promote your “good side,” it’s also possible promote your brand’s weaknesses strategically too. You just have to be thoughtful and clever about it, and you can’t be afraid to have a little fun. Because consumers will get what you’re doing and applaud you for it.

But one parting thought: if you’re going to go this route? Don’t skimp on photography. Here’s what happens when your tourism photos suck.

Six surprising things you can rent by the hour.

October 13, 2022

Filed under: Customer Service, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies — @ 8:40 am

The tourism industry changed dramatically when platforms like VRBO and Airbnb enabled travelers to forgo hotels for a vacation home rental. But not only did this change traditional tourism lodging models…it gave “regular people” a thirst for renting their stuff to tourists, thrill seekers, and folks looking to relax. I mean…why stop at lodging?

And suddenly, the apps and online matching platforms were born. Here are six surprising things you can rent by the hour, from regular people who have something you want and don’t/can’t own yourself.

A Garden

Love gardening or want to try growing some veggies, and don’t have your own patch of land for the pleasure? The platform Shared Earth matches people who have plots of unused land with aspiring gardeners in their area. Through the in-app messaging system, you can get information about the sunlight, soil quality, and other pertinent facts to help you determine if that particular land is suitable for the types of things you want to grow. Tourism professionals…take note here. Got some land you could share with the community this way? Worth considering.

A Swimming Pool

Want an escape but can’t afford the time/money for a vacation? Rent someone’s swimming pool and yard by the hour through Swimply (which might be the most perfect brand name on the planet). You plug in your desired location and time and voila…a list of pools for rent and their photos are shown. Then you just book and go. One gent raked in nearly $200,000 just renting out his pool over the course of two years. The only downside to such a perfect brand name comes when you want to develop new revenue streams: Swimply is beta testing Swimply Spaces, through which you can rent people’s tennis courts, private gyms, and more. Cool idea but it dilutes the power of the name.

An aqua blue swimming pool with a stone waterfall feature is just one of the six surprising things you can rent by the hour.

A Boat

Why buy a ticket for a boating experience with lots of other tourists? Rent your own for an hour or two – even with a private captain and/or crew – from someone who has a boat to rent out as a side hustle. The Boatsetter app will match you with your perfect boating experience in your preferred location. Yachts, fishing boats, party boats, pontoon boats, sailboats…even jet skis are available. And the locations are pretty diverse, with both ocean and lake options across the US.

Outdoor Sporting Gear

In another example of a perfect brand name getting diluted through expansion, Spinlister began as a way for folks to rent bikes of all kinds, from touring to mountain and everything in between. Over time, it grew to feature a wide range of outdoor gear like surfboards, stand-up paddle boards, skis, and more. This makes total sense for folks who are casual outdoor enthusiasts that have neither the inclination nor the storage space to own their own gear. Tourism professionals…take note here: there’s a Spinlister Pro version available for businesses, so if you want to lure in all those folks staying in Airbnb’s around your community, this might be a gateway.

A Yard for Your Dog

The brilliantly named Sniffspot – and please for the love of branding, Sniffspot…don’t you too start renting out other things that make no sense for your name – will allow you to rent someone’s backyard for your dog to play in by the hour. And not just a backyard…the listing options include private hiking trails, fenced in/roam free areas, yards with pools the dogs can use, yards for private use, yards for playing with other dogs, yards with doggie agility courses, and more. At prices that range from $5 – $20 (ish) per hour, it’s an incredible value…even if you have your own yard for your dog, but occasionally want to rent one with a pool or agility course to give your pup its own mini-vacation.

A black dog and a brown dog running fast in a large yard, one of the six surprising things you can rent by the hour.

Your Driveway

If you’re fortunate enough to have a driveway, garage, or any kind of owned area that could be a parking spot in a densely populated area (where scoring a parking space is like winning the lottery), you can rent it out through SpotHero. At first glance, the website looks like it’s only used by big companies and parking garages, but regular folks can rent out their home spot here too…by the hour, day, week, or month. It’s a super helpful service for people who don’t have time to waste looking for a parking spot, but don’t want to pay the exorbitant fees often charged by garages, stadiums, and (sorry tourism industry) urban hotels.

And in addition to these six surprising things you can rent by the hour, here’s a bonus: Fat Llama. Want to rent a painting? A photography lighting umbrella? A scooter? A sewing machine? A ukulele? A drone? A power drill? You can find it all (and more) at Fat Llama.

Now THERE’S a brand name that can handle expansion into any category. Because…random.

For some memorable examples of when tourism businesses treated me with the same kind of personal relationship vibe you get from these “regular person” rentals, check out these 10 unexpected (and fabulous) tourism guest service stories.

Six cool examples of marketing.

September 19, 2022

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool, Branding Strategies, Effective Communication — @ 12:16 pm

At Redpoint, we geek out over marketing success and recently, we’ve discovered these six cool examples of marketing worthy of applause.

Utterly Unexpected Trade Show Booth

When we were kids, those claw machines at arcades and amusement parks were irresistible. But as adults? Imagine BEING the claw, and swooping into a giant tank to grab as many prizes as you can. Hats off to Squishmallows for this standout trade show booth at VidCon, where fans waited in line for four hours just for their 20-second turn in the Human Claw Machine.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this image shows a trade show booth filled with Squishmallow stuffed animal toys and a person hanging above them ready to grab as many as possible.

Seriously Clever Video Ads

It’s quite reasonable to assume that not EVERYONE will be interested in watching The History Channel’s documentary series about the Roman Colosseum. But their marketing folks have produced a series of video ads that give it wider appeal and the best possible chance of luring in non-history buffs. Meet Gaius Falco, head groundskeeper of the Colosseum (by way of New Jersey?), in these two ads.

Brilliant Branding Concept

OK, we can’t even breathe because this concept is so absurdly PERFECT. Follow me on this: Heavy metal band Metallica has a famous song called All Within My Hands. In 2017, the band created a nonprofit organization called All Within My Hands Foundation. And one of its signature programs is the Metallica Scholars Initiative. This initiative partners with the American Association of Community Colleges to support scholarships and fund programs for students to learn trades working with their hands, such as welding, electrical engineering, HVAC, construction, and more. The program supports 32 community colleges across 27 states. We’re talking millions of dollars in funding here. BRAVO, both for the initiative and the sheer branding brilliance.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this logo for the Metallica All Within My Hands Foundation shows a light blue hand with a keyhole and guitar neck.

Most Relatable Billboard (possibly of all time)

Score one for “good old fashioned” Timex, who managed – with just ten simple words and a photo – to instantly communicate how their product provides a solution to one of the most popular, gut-wrenching problems on the planet.

One of six cool examples in marketing, this Timex billboard shows a picture of a watch and the caption "check the time without seeing you have 1,269 unanswered emails."

Smart…but Creepy?…Product Launch

This product came out a few years ago, but we just stumbled across it recently. The Shelves of Life product is a bookshelf that can be repurposed into a coffin, so you can be buried in it when you die. Wait…what? Indeed, this is true and it can be purchased, and it comes with visual instructions and diagrams for making the shelf-to-coffin transformation. More about it here, and more about the designer, William Warren, here.

One of six cool marketing examples, this set of bookshelves can be transformed into a coffin when the owner dies.

Video Storytelling That Steals Your Heart

Bravissima, Barilla! This video tells a story about Izyan Ahmad (“Zizou”), a young tennis player who had a dream of playing against Roger Federer when he was 11 years old. Watch what happened five years later.

And in addition to these six cool examples of marketing, here’s one of our throwback faves. When the baker hired Simone, it started a seriously cool chain reaction.

What’s a “newsworthy” animal experience in tourism?

June 20, 2022

Filed under: Public Relations, Observations From the Field, Media Relations, This is Cool — @ 5:00 pm

In our role as PR counselors, we’re often asked how to make things newsworthy, and tourism animal experiences are no exception. It’s a valid question because the answer requires more than just adding discounted zoo tickets to a hotel stay to create a package. To be newsworthy, there must be something extraordinary, unique, unexpected, or timely about it.

Before I review some examples to illustrate the point, let’s just be clear on this: being “newsworthy” in ANY subject is not easy, nor is it often achieved passively. You have to pursue it deliberately, and in most cases jump through some hoops to make it happen. Proactive investments are usually required, whether financial, creative, or both. Risk – often high risk – is usually involved. And a thoughtful runway of time and planning is key.

This means that, as a tourism marketer or owner/operator, you must have both vision and patience if you want to create concepts that are newsworthy.

And these folks did.

Here are four illustrative examples from around the world of newsworthy animal experiences in tourism:

Jamala Wildlife Lodge

This hotel is set within the National Zoo & Aquarium in Canberra, Australia. And by “set within,” I mean the accommodations are organically nestled into the entire experience, not a stand-alone hotel that happens to be located on the grounds. Rooms and suites offer exclusive viewing perches, or share glass walls with animal habitats, allowing guests unrestricted viewing from the privacy of their own space, like so:

A woman taking a bubble bath while watching tigers prowling on the other side of a glass wall is a highly newsworthy tourism animal experience at Jamala Wildlife Lodge.

From jungle bungalows to giraffe treehouses and rooms that put guests up close and personal with sharks, meerkats, capuchin monkeys and more… it’s no wonder the website prominently features a “join the waitlist” option.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

The financial and architectural investment to create unique accommodations that offer rare 24/7 access to animals.
Only a small handful of hotels like this in the world provide such an atypical experience.
Dramatic, unexpected photos/video to promote the experience.

The Biosphere at Treehotel, Sweden

The entire concept at Treehotel is extraordinary and newsworthy… a collection of dramatic, high-design treehouses distinctively different from each other. But one – The Biosphere – takes your breath away both visually and experientially:

A photo of a hotel room suspended in the air from a tree, adorned with 340 birdhouses on the outside is a newsworthy tourism animal experience available at The Biosphere at Treehotel in Sweden.

Adorned with 340 birdhouses attached to its exterior, guests enjoy a front row seat to some of the most spectacular birdwatching possible. The Biosphere’s design is meant to protect and foster the local bird population. But lordy, it manages to be a showstopper in the process.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

Well, 340 birdhouses to start (duh). Pretty sure it’s the only accommodation in the world with THAT distinction.
It’s visually arresting, and photos of it stop people in their tracks, even when mindlessly scrolling on social media.
The bold, complex design earns news attention for both its financial and creative investments.

Caiman, A Brazilian Ecotourism Retreat in the Pantanal

The Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland, and its 42 million acres spans across Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Caiman Ecological Refuge, with 18 lodge rooms and two private villas, is within the Pantanal in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The 150 miles to get there from the airport are fraught with dirt roads that have no internet or GPS access, but it’s worth the drive because this:

A photo of a jaguar with mouth wide open, showing sharp teeth, is part of the newsworthy tourism animal experience guests can have at Oncafari and the Caiman Ecological Refuge in Brazil.

One of Caiman’s conservation partners, Onçafari, is dedicated to the conservation of once-endangered and now near-threatened jaguars with research, protection, education, and repopulation. Guests can go out with guides to learn more about these elusive animals through up-close interaction. Nocturnal guided exploration is also an option for those feeling brave.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

The confluence of the Pantanal, jaguars, and deeply meaningful conservation efforts.
The Caiman Ecological Refuge itself, which offers guests education and interaction with many other options for sustainability education…from livestock ranching to conservation projects for endangered and illegally trafficked birds.
The remote location. There’s no convenient airport shuttle and no public transportation. You need a special kind of car that can take the dirt roads or a turbo-prop aircraft to get there. Basically… you have to really WANT to get there.

Natural Habitat Alaska Bear Camp

It’s true there’s no shortage of “bear viewing” experiences in the tourism industry, especially in British Columbia and Alaska. So it takes an unusual one to stand out. Once again, we lean into the “hard to get to” element here. With Natural Habitat, you fly in a private bush plan over volcanoes, glaciers, and icefields to get to this remote Bear Camp:

An aerial view of the Natural Habitat Adventures Bear Camp, which is a highly newsworthy tourism animal experience.

The weatherproof tent cabins are surprisingly designed for comfort, with climate control, lighting, hard floors and a solid door. It’s not glamping…but it certainly ain’t “roughing it.” The three days you spend at the camp gives you extraordinary up-close access to Alaskan brown bears with experienced Expedition Leaders who both educate and safeguard you. This is no “quick tour to a viewing platform” so you can take a selfie and prove you were there. This is a full-on bear immersion.

What elements make this a newsworthy tourism animal experience?

The remote location. Any place “only accessible by plane or boat” already piques media interest. The harder one must work to get there, the more interesting it becomes.
The layout and design of the Bear Camp. Just one spectacular aerial photo (as shown above) is enough to capture a traveler’s imagination and interest.
The collaboration with World Wildlife Fund (WWF). There’s no denying that such respected brand recognition adds credibility to the experience.

These four experiences aren’t all newsworthy for exactly the same reasons, but two things are certain with all of them:

They’re not “news-washing,” which is when a business tries to put a slick bow on something to make it seem newsworthy, without making the under-the-hood investment needed to give the angle true, credible substance. When a program, package, or experience focuses more on “looking good” than “being good”… a credible journalist can sniff that out in a heartbeat, and it’s a turnoff.
They all have extraordinary photo/video opportunities to help tell their story…and the business has invested in capturing the BEST photography/footage at likely a hefty cost to them.

Investing in “hero shot” photography is essential to developing a newsworthy story, as you can see with these tourism animal experiences shared here. Journalists NEED photography, and it’s only natural that they’d want to use ones that tell the story visually, in just one glance…and that cut through the clutter to get people’s attention.

For more tips on this crucial news element, see these tips on the secret to a great tourism photo.

10 Unexpected (and fabulous) tourism guest service stories.

September 20, 2021

Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, This is Cool — @ 8:58 am

Here’s the way to create indelible tourism memories: deliver completely unexpected, fabulous, and highly personal guest service. Also, spoiler alert…there’s a story in this piece about my trip to Spain that’s going to horrify my mother. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry. I’m older now and I won’t do it again.)

Tourism businesses – hotels, airlines, attractions, cruise lines, tour companies, etc. – often invest a ton of money and labor developing comprehensive guest service programs and amenities. And those bring value to the tourism experience, no doubt. But the simple truth is that PEOPLE create the unexpected, joyful moments that make the most lasting impressions on guests. Moments like these ultimately transform guests into ambassadors.

I travel for a living because I do tourism marketing and consulting work around the world. So that means I’ve stayed at hundreds of hotels in dozens of countries and have thousands of tourism experiences under my belt. Many of these have been utterly outrageous – like the time I stayed at a five-star luxury resort in the Caribbean for a grand total of 12 hours (including sleep) as part of an island-wide site assessment.

At this resort, I had my own butler, who literally unpacked my entire suitcase and pressed all my clothes and hung them…despite the fact that he was just going to fold and pack them all up again 12 hours later. When I came in from dinner that night, he had decorated the entire bathroom with flower petals and candles, drawn a bath, and had champagne chilling next to the tub for me. I was tempted to stay awake all night just so I could see what he’d do next.

You’d think an experience like that would be near the top of my “best hospitality experiences” memory list, right? But no…and not because it was too short-lived to enjoy it. It’s because there’s nothing extraordinary about that level of service at that type of resort. Don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely lovely and I enjoyed every second of it. But it all followed a carefully planned script that was delivered uniformly to all guests. Plus, for the price of that suite, it was completely expected. Indeed, I’d have been disappointed if the service had been anything less.

So no…those types of experiences don’t top my “best hospitality experiences” list. In fact, all of the experiences that have made a lasting impression on me and turned me into a loyal, enthusiastic ambassador for each organization have just two things in common: 1) they were completely unexpected, and 2) they happened because an employee I encountered went out of their way – and off script – to bring me joy.

And here’s the best part: most of the experiences cost the business absolutely nothing to deliver.

So here, in no particular order, are 10 of my most unforgettable, unexpected, and completely fabulous tourism guest service experiences.

I was offered a home-cooked meal.

When I called the Torrent River Inn in Hawke’s Bay, Newfoundland to make a one-night reservation that split up a 10-hour drive for me, I asked what dinner options would be available for my late evening arrival. Turns out, the inn is in the middle of nowhere, AND their restaurant would be closed, AND it was Canadian Thanksgiving that day. Guess what? The employee on the phone – who was not the owner, btw – offered to bring me a plate of food from her family’s Thanksgiving dinner when I arrived. She wasn’t even going to be working that night.

I was sent the souvenirs I regretted not buying.

As I was checking out of the Henry Jones Art Hotel in Hobart, Tasmania, the bellman asked me what I was going to regret most about leaving their beautiful island. I didn’t even have to think about it: I had seen a mug at a touristy store in town that cracked me up and was just sooooooo Tasmania. But not being “that kind” of a souvenir buyer as a rule (I’m more likely to buy a local recipe book or items made by a local artisan), I didn’t buy it. But as soon as he asked me what I would regret about leaving, not buying that mug was the first thing that came to mind. When I got home to New York three weeks later, guess what was waiting for me? A set of four of those mugs, compliments of the hotel.

Picture of souvenir mug that says Send Tassie More Tourists the Last Ones Were Delicious

They brought me handpicked wildflowers.

My stay at the York Harbor Inn in Maine began horribly: the night I arrived, I realized I had strep throat. It took a bit of time to get the right meds, so for 72 hours I stayed feverishly holed up in my room. Ultimately I even had to extend my stay because I was too sick to leave. On the day I emerged from the room for the first time, I let housekeeping know I was stepping out for a while so they could go in and fumigate (bless them). When I got back, besides the room being sparkly clean, there was a jar filled with wildflowers and a note: “We’re so glad you’re feeling better. Love, the Housekeepers at the York Harbor Inn.”

They made me a pillow.

In what might just be the greatest guest service experience of all time, this housekeeper made history for me. At the hotel that has since been rebranded as Hotel Halifax in Nova Scotia (but don’t worry, the staff is the same and the service is just as exceptional), Sandra the housekeeper recognized that I was using a towel in a pillowcase every night during my stay…and then she started making towel pillows for me on her own. Let me be clear: I do this in hundreds of hotels and no housekeeper has EVER done anything other than remake the bed with fluffy pillows intact and towels hanging back in the bathroom where they belong. So to discover Sandra’s towel pillow with a special note to me was like the greatest surprise of my tourism life. In fact, when I blogged about the story, it was shared over 100,000 times and even earned Sandra and the hotel an award from their corporate brand. Read here How One Housekeeper Won My Brand Allegiance…and My Heart.

A note to Chris Miranda from the housekeeper at the Hotel Halifax as an example of unexpected, fabulous tourism guest service.

I was given free coffee and treated like a celebrity.

To this day, I still don’t know how she did it. When I walked into the sundries store at Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Vermont to get a cup of coffee, the cashier told me she knew who I was and the coffee was on the house. Yes, I was there to deliver the inspirational keynote speech at the resort’s season-opening employee rally. And yes, it’s not like they had a ton of guests roaming around just before ski season started. Maybe they had sent around my picture to all staff or posted it in the employee breakroom, or maybe she just figured the one stranger in the shop HAD to be the day’s guest speaker. Or maybe – could it be? – she remembered me from when I spoke there a year prior, even though we hadn’t met. But you know what? I don’t want to know. It’s way more magical not knowing. I was just recovering from a grueling, white-knuckle nine-hour drive in a snowstorm to get there, and to be unexpectedly recognized by a random staffer and given free coffee was just the BEST THING EVER.

There was a dog waiting in my room.

While presenting a tourism community workshop on developing hotel packages and experiences at the Rodd Miramichi River Hotel in Miramichi, New Brunswick, I jokingly suggested that it would be awesome if hotels could offer a dog as part of a stay. As there were many dog lovers in the audience, we bounced that fun topic around a bit and everyone learned how passionate I am about dogs. Turns out, the general manager of the hotel happened to be in the audience for that workshop. He secretly texted a hotel staff member to quickly go buy a toy dog (It barks! It moves!). By the time I finished that workshop two hours later and went up to my room, that dog was waiting there for me…complete with dog bed, treats, and a special note from the hotel. Tourism guest service doesn’t get more unexpected and fabulous than that.

Christina Miranda showing a fabulous and unexpected tourism guest service example while she sits in a dog bed holding the toy dog delivered to her room at the Rodd Miramichi River Hotel.

I got extra dumplings just because I asked for them.

While at legendary restaurant Buddakan in NYC, my indecision between two appetizers prompted me to order one and then mischievously ask if I could just taste ONE dumpling from the other… just so I’d know for next time. Imagine my surprise when – in addition to the appetizer I ordered – the server brought out an ENTIRE dish of Szechuan pork dumplings instead of just one…and then told me there was no charge for them. That simple act of kindness (and investment) earned them my loyalty, return visits, and about a zillion referrals. In fact, I did the math at the time and their ROI for that one gesture was so strong that I wrote about the experience here: You Can’t Find Love on a Spreadsheet.

I got into a sold-out bullfight in Spain against all odds.

There was not a ticket to be had for the high-profile bullfight happening when I was staying in Madrid. Watching a bullfight is not for the faint of heart, but I had no intention of leaving Spain without experiencing such a rich cultural tradition. When I asked the concierge at my hotel, which has since been rebranded as the ME Madrid Reina Victoria, I learned that there was no way I could snag a ticket without giving up my retirement savings. I went away sad. Until the next day, when he took me aside at breakfast and told me a family he knows agreed to let me join them, no charge. TBH, it was like being in witness protection: I was taken to an appointed street corner on the back of a motorbike by one of the hotel’s dishwashers, met there by a niece in the family, handed off to a cousin in a café near Las Ventas Bullring, and then – no lie – smuggled into the arena by the family. This incredible group of nearly 30 people shared their food & drinks with me, educated me on the whole spectacle of bullfighting as it unfolded, and introduced me to nearly every person in our section of the arena. And they wouldn’t accept a dime. It was truly one of the best days of my life, being embraced by these strangers and immersed into their culture. It was only the next day that I realized I was lucky that all those witness-protection-style-logistics didn’t end up with me being sold on the black market to a world of unpleasant things. Ah, to be young and blindly trusting again.

They protected my cupcakes to the death.

When I arrived at the WestJet check-in desk at LaGuardia Airport enroute to Newfoundland by way of Toronto, I had 875 cupcakes in tow. My goal: get those cupcakes all the way to St. John’s, NL, in one piece – frosting intact – to deliver as a surprise at a tourism industry speech. I was a nervous wreck because we all know baggage handlers aren’t always the most gentle caretakers, but there was simply no other way to get these cupcakes there fresh and on time. Enter Jesse and Alex at WestJet. They dove right into being co-conspirators on “Operation Cupcake Surprise,” and took personal responsibility for marking the boxes and shepherding them to the plane. Then, at the gate, they introduced me to the baggage supervisor who personally stacked my boxes on board in a cool dry area, making sure they were all upright. And they alerted the flight crew of the precious cargo to ensure my cupcakes and I got the same extraordinary treatment when we changed planes in Toronto. The cupcakes were in perfect condition upon arrival. PS – they even gave me an upgrade. #fan4life

Chris Miranda stands between two WestJet employees at the gate in an example of unexpected and fabulous tourism guest service experiences.

Someone bought me a hairdryer.

While staying at The Peninsula Chicago, I needed a hairdryer with a special attachment as mine broke during the arrival flight. They didn’t have it at the hotel, so on my way out to my dinner meeting, I asked the concierge for help locating a place to purchase one. Requirements: it had to be on my route to/from dinner, open in the evening, and definitely have it in stock. I told him I was absurdly pressed for time that night, but needed it for 5am the next morning to groom for a big presentation. The concierge instantly responded to my stress level and just said “go to your dinner, I’ll take care of it for you.” When I got back to my room that night, the hairdryer was sitting on my bed with the money I gave him to buy it and a note on the box: “This one’s on me. Knock ‘em dead tomorrow.”

You see? It’s PEOPLE that make the most lasting impressions. PEOPLE create the unexpected and fabulous guest service moments in tourism. And those moments become marketable. They create ambassadors for your brand.

So if you’re a tourism business, the moral of the story here is this: 1) hire kind people who like to make others happy, and 2) give them the freedom – within reason – to put that skill into practice with your guests.

Oh and here’s a tip: do NOT let ridiculous and out-of-touch corporate policy override guest happiness. The chocolate chip cookie policy at this resort is another experience I’ll never forget…but not in a good way.