Sunshine Matters

Last week, VISIT FLORIDA’s International team attended ITB Berlin, the world’s leading travel tradeshow. ITB Berlin, held March 7-11 in Berlin, Germany, hosted approximately 10,000 exhibitors and organizations from 186 countries eager to promote their destinations to more than 170,000 convention attendees.

At this year’s convention, VISIT FLORIDA’s pavilion included 68 Florida attendees from 22 Industry Partners including DMOs, hotels and attractions.

Miles Saunders, Media and Content Manager at Discover Crystal River, said, “This has been our most successful ITB ever, and we could not have done it without VISIT FLORIDA. The German market is our most important international market and the connections we have made are phenomenal. As a smaller destination, we rely heavily on VISIT FLORIDA and were proud to be a part of their presence.”

The first three days of the travel show are dedicated to trade professionals only, while the latter two are designed to spotlight destinations to consumers. VISIT FLORIDA staff had a full schedule of nearly 50 appointments with tour operators and travel brands and met with 60 key journalists and bloggers on the trade show floor. In addition, VISIT FLORIDA staff members participated in the Speed Blogger Event and the Visit USA Media Breakfast which offered even more one-on-one time with some of ITB Berlin’s 5,500+ accredited journalists and bloggers representing approximately 100 countries.

For the sixth year in a row, VISIT FLORIDA hosted a signature travel trade and media event, providing our Partners the opportunity to network with 180 European travel trade representatives and journalists in a unique atmosphere. This year’s event, sponsored by The Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel as well as Eurowings, was held in the Pan Am Lounge at House Eden, the luxurious apartment building used in the 60’s and 70’s to house flight crew from the famous Pan American Airways.

Tamara Pigott, Executive Director of The Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel, said, “ITB is an incredibly important tradeshow for The Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel. Because of our Partnership with VISIT FLORIDA, we were able to cohost this year’s Pan Am Lounge event with Eurowings and promote the six weekly Eurowings flights from Germany to Fort Myers starting in May.”

Also during ITB Berlin, VISIT FLORIDA sponsored the LGBT ITB Party by TomOnTour at The Reed Club. This party, which is by special invitation only, reinforces VISIT FLORIDA’s commitment to serving the LGBT travel community on a global scale, and helps promote the Sunshine State as one of the world’s premier gay and lesbian destinations.

Suya Davenport, Corporate Director of Leisure Sales at Benchmark, a global hospitality company, said, “ITB Berlin is a great show that offers Benchmark the opportunity to develop new relationships with the German market and build on our relationships with the Florida destination Partners who attend. “We have hotels throughout the state, so our partnership with VISIT FLORIDA is very important to our company. This tradeshow is just one of the many reasons our company is a VISIT FLORIDA Partner.”

To learn more about VISIT FLORIDA’s international marketing efforts, visit VISITFLORIDA.org and check out our online Marketing Planner.

Last week, Governor Scott and VISIT FLORIDA announced another record quarter for tourism, with Florida welcoming over 88 million visitors through the first nine months of the year.  This represents a 3.3 percent increase over last year, which is great news. Even with this success, we are continuing to aggressively market our state to finish the year.  We are doubling down on our success by launching our new 4th Quarter Blitz Campaign, which will encourage last-minute, impulse getaways for consumers during the holiday season.  The campaign will include digital advertising, radio promotions, Facebook Live broadcasts, and shopping mall takeovers targeted towards our largest markets on the East Coast, such as Atlanta, New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

The targeted digital advertising elements will include Google TrueView, Taboola, Adara, and Quantcast.  These elements use digital algorithms to help distribute Florida holiday-themed content to targeted consumers across a number of platforms.  The radio promotions will air in Detroit, Houston and Atlanta and be featured on nationally-syndicated shows such as Elvis Duran, Mario Lopez, Delilah and Bobby Bones.  These promotions will give listeners a chance to win a trip to Florida, but also keep Florida’s sunshine top of mind during the winter season.  The Facebook Live broadcasts will feature six Florida cities and focus on the warm weather at some of our state’s brightest attractions and destinations.  And finally, with our shopping mall takeovers, we’re placing fresh content on cutting-edge video boards and ad panels at some of the busiest, high-end malls on the East Coast, such as Lenox Square in Atlanta and King of Prussia in Philadelphia.

With these elements in place, our 4th Quarter Blitz will help last minute travelers and shoppers wrap up some sunshine this holiday season as we round out another successful year for tourism in our state.

Earlier this month, VISIT FLORIDA attended World Travel Market London 2017 (WTM), the second largest annual international travel tradeshow.  Now in its 38th year, WTM has long been a must-attend business-to-business event presenting a diverse range of destinations and industry sectors to the U.K. and other international travel professionals.  This year, the show attracted more than 51,000 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international media, as well as 5,000 exhibitors from 182 countries. Continue reading »

Late yesterday, Governor Rick Scott announced that Florida set another tourism record by welcoming the highest number of visitors of any nine months in the state’s history with 88.2 million visitors.  This represents a 3.3 percent increase over the 85.4 million visitors from the same period in 2016.  This includes 77.6 million domestic visitors, 7.9 million overseas visitors and 2.7 million Canadians visitors.  Governor Scott made the announcement at Azucar Ice Cream Company, a locally-owned ice cream boutique that has been nationally recognized as one of Little Havana’s top tourist destinations. Continue reading »

Last week, VISIT FLORIDA launched its Canada Takeover winter marketing campaign to attract Canadian visitors to Florida. The campaign kicked off with “Florida Day” in Toronto that saw Governor Rick Scott and Consul General of Canada Susan Harper, along with five of VISIT FLORIDA’s Industry Partners, host consumer-engagement activations, a media reception and a press conference. Continue reading »