Sunshine Matters

Reminding families in national and statewide drive and fly markets that the time is right for planning that last summer vacation before school starts up again, VISIT FLORIDA conducted a satellite media tour (SMT) from St. George Island State Park on July 16 and a radio media tour (RMT) on July 18. Vacation expert and “kid wrangler” Jill Martin – VISITFLORIDA.com’s Family Insider – leveraged Dr. Beaches’ announcement this year that St. George Island is the No. 4 beach in the nation during his annual top 10 beaches list to talk about Florida summer vacation opportunities. She was interviewed by more than 100 TV stations from across the country, including two nationally syndicated daytime shows. Jill shared family vacation planning insights and invited viewers and listeners to check out Florida’s Hot Deals and other vacation planing tools on VISITFLORIDA.com.

Top markets that picked up the SMT were Dallas-Fort Worth (which is the number 5 TV market in the U.S.), San Francisco and its outlying areas of Oakland and San Jose (which is the number 6 TV market in the U.S.), and the Atlanta and Houston markets (which are 8 and 10 respectively). Other markets included Boston, Birmingham, Detroit, Phoenix, Cleveland, Columbus (OH), St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Asheville and Albany (NY), among others. Collectively, the SMT resulted in 1.62 million broadcast viewers in earned media impressions.

As an example, check out the interview with CBS affiliate WTVR in Richmond, VA.

During the RMT, Jill was interviewed by radio stations from in-state outlets as well as across the country, including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Charlotte, Norfolk, Minneapolis, Portland, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Charleston and many others. The RMT resulted in 3.01 million broadcast listeners in earned media impressions.

Prior to this set of media tours, VISIT FLORIDA hosted an SMT just before Memorial Day weekend in Sanibel Island, reaching an audience of more than 2 million broadcast viewers in similar national markets with the message that summer vacation season had officially begun and inviting them to go to VISITFLORIDA.com for vacation planning ideas and resources.  Together, the two media tours in Sanibel and St. George Island had earned media impressions of nearly 7 million potential visitors to the Sunshine State.