UK OFFICE JANUARY 2016 REPORT Prepared By: Venessa Alexander UK Director
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UK OFFICE JANUARY 2016 REPORT Prepared by: Venessa Alexander UK Director Tour Operators Benns/USA Tur, Oslo – We met with Bent Bjune, Sales Manager and Geir Soreng, USA Expert, to discuss performance and to provide an overview of the destination. They reported good bookings to Florida, despite exchange rates being against customers travelling from Norway. They are still seeing a mix of early and late bookings and are optimistic about the business generated during January. They also advised that the USAtur brand was no longer operating and they will be known as Benns. Florida Huddle Met with the following operators at Florida Huddle: Virgin Holidays – Met with Scott Edwards, Product Manager as a follow up to a meeting held at their office in January. Room nights to the destination are currently down but Scott is not unduly worried about this as he feels it is early and things will turn around. Still trying to confirm co-op marketing with Virgin Holidays and much of this will depend on the final decision with regards a retail in-store promotion. American Holidays – Met with Dee Burdock, Product Manager to discuss the proposal on the table for co-op marketing later in the year. Dee advised that room nights YTD are tracking slightly up. Funway Holidays – Met with Melissa Tilling, Product Director. Discussed the recent co-op that we ran as part of a large Florida Beaches initiative. Room nights in 2015 were up 4.8% over 2014 and they are currently tracking up by 7.7% year to date. St Pete/Clearwater is by far their largest selling beach destination. BA Holidays – Met with Mark Tanner, Product Manager and discussed the consumer campaign about to launch. Confirmed detailed information about the Wednesday promotions during February. American Sky – Met with Kathryn Glover, Product Director. Room nights were level year on year for 2015 at 525 but are tracking up 8% so far for 2016. Kathryn understands that it will be difficult for us to allocate co-op marketing money on this base of room nights and has committed to a push on their website for the destination, to include as much content as possible. Hayes & Jarvis – Met with Nicola Holihead, Destination Manager who had been on the recent fam for her first visit to the area. On that basis they are looking to slightly revise the product they offer and increase their self-catering options. We will participate on a Florida training day on March 11th. Meetings/Training/Events Reiselivsmessen Oslo Travel Show – We participated in the annual travel show as part of Florida Beaches, which took place at Telenor Arena, Oslo on Friday 15th – Sunday 17th January, hosting approx. 350 worldwide exhibitors. This included destinations, travel agencies, transportation, hotels and activity providers. A total of approx. 41k visitors attended during the three days where brochures and information was distributed to both consumers and trade. Discover America Sweden Trade Show – We attended the travel workshop in Stockholm which consisted of timed workshops which allowed us to speak with and provide destination information to over 100 travel agents. Pre Huddle Fam trip – We finalised the itinerary and co-hosted the Pre Huddle Fam trip to St Pete/Clearwater with Visit Florida, hosting 7 UK and Irish Product Managers. Attendees were from BA Holidays, JAC Travel, TUI Specialist, America As You Like It, American Sky, American Holidays and USAirtours. The trip included accommodation for 2 nights at Barefoot Beach Resort, and the group enjoyed breakfast at Maggie Mae’s, Art from the Heart Experience, lunch at Dunedin Brewery, and dinner and drinks in downtown St Petersburg. The group also had the opportunity to visit Hyatt Regency Clearwater, Opal Sands and Sandpearl before travelling to Tampa for Huddle. Holiday World Show, Dublin – As part of Florida Beaches, we attended this show held over the weekend of 20th – 22nd January, which saw over 700 trade and 41.9k public attendees. The show was very well received with many enquiries from consumers who had visited Orlando previously but were looking to explore other areas on their next trip. We were able to provide brochures and maps to these customers. TRADE LIAISON UK Consumer Campaign – Extensive liaison with BVK, VSPC, Media Agency Group, Rooster PR and BA Holidays to finalise and sign off all elements of the campaign including artwork, landing page and detailed activity plan for the four Wednesdays in February using additional OOH media, the yetis and the wrapped taxi. Campaign launch is 1st February. Sainsbury Brand Affinity Campaign – We have now received the final elements for sign off in the Sainsbury campaign in association with TravelPlanners. The campaign is due to launch on the 1st February and will run for one month. Tour America – Confirmed a co-op marketing agreement for a Dublin out of home campaign in partnership with SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment to run from 15th February for a period of one month. The campaign will include print (Sunday World Full Page Advert), digital marketing and social media (Touramerica.ie homepage takeover, retargeting digital marketing, Facebook takeover and Facebook adverts), a TV campaign (TV3 – Ireland AM promotion) and out of home activity on the Dublin tram system the Luas (tram domination, shelter wraps, internal footprints, tram stop promotion) including promotion via a Q102 radio campaign promotion including radio adverts. Work has commenced on providing Tour America with all the required elements they need to implement this activity. Travel Republic – Discussions continue to take place with Travel Republic and Kissimmee Tourism regarding the bespoke joint co-op marketing campaign that we are looking to run from March – May 2016. National brand affinity campaign – Confirmed a campaign to run in mid-March for one month with national shoe retailer, Deichman Shoes. The campaign will include in-store POS in 90 stores, online, e-newsletter and social media elements. USAirtours/TravelPlanners – A proposal has been received from Linda Dixey, Product Manager, regarding joint co-op marketing activity in 2016 and is currently being reviewed with a view to partnering with this tour operator again this year. Virgin Holidays/Virgin Retail – After our recent discussions with Sonia Hunter, Senior Marketing Executive at Virgin Holidays, we have confirmed retail activity in the form of standee graphics that will run for a period of one month from the 14th March and will feature across their entire retail network and which will take centre stage in all their retail concessions. Discussions are also taking place regarding our participation in the Visit Florida/Virgin Holidays promotion, which this year is due to run from the end of April. Other activity will also be confirmed but at this stage has not been agreed. Premier Holidays – We have received a marketing proposal from Clare Crowson, Marketing Manager, which includes a Trade spa/golf day, training at their head office to their sales agents, window posters for their 50+ stores, PR, website presence, and newsletter to both trade and consumer. We have asked SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment to partner with this activity, and we are just in the process of confirming dates with Premier Holidays. Ocean Florida – We have agreed a proposal with Ocean Holidays which will focus on the homes in St Pete/Clearwater. The activity will include 3 newsletters, homepage banner for 2 weeks, landing page, and social media. We are waiting to confirm with Lisa Barrington when this activity will go live. American Holidays – Discussions have been taking place with American Holidays in Ireland regarding joint co-op marketing activity in 2016. We are currently waiting on a proposal and are keen to implement a campaign in the coming months. Experience Kissimmee – Following our conversation with Jo Piani, we have agreed to work in partnership with them during 2016. This will include partnering them with relevant marketing campaigns with Tour Operators including Travel Republic, joint training and a possible fam trip in September. Virgin Holidays – Sponsored the afternoon snacks trolley for the Virgin Holidays reservations staff. This entitled us to walk the reservations floor, giving out snacks, maps and giveaways as well as having brief conversations with the staff. Florida’s Beaches – Finalised shipping and booth set up for the Reiselivsmessen Show in Oslo and Holiday World in Dublin. My America Holiday – An Orlando and St Pete Beach twin centre holiday was featured on the Visit USA newsletter which highlighted that customers are able to book multi- centre holidays online with this operator, a key selling point for them as others are unable to offer this capability online. Visit USA Ireland – We provided copy and images of the Dali and Disney exhibit at the Dali museum for inclusion on the Visit USA website, along with details of the new hotel developments in St Pete/Clearwater, which are now live on their website. BA Fam Trip – We offered suggestions for their proposed in house agent Fam trip planned for March. We will continue to support this trip where necessary. Magic Holidays - John Hamer, Florida Specialist contacted us to advise he was attending the Travel and Leisure Show at Village Urban Resort in Blackpool on 31st January, so we have arranged brochures and maps to be delivered for show. It is expected that there will be up to 4500 visitors attending the show. Visit USA UK – The Visit USA UK monthly e-newsletter that is sent to both trade and consumers featured a twin centre holiday with American Sky to Orlando and St. Pete/Clearwater. The holiday was based on a 10 night package staying at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort and the Tradewinds Island Grand Resort, St Pete Beach. Unike Reiser – Following our meeting at Reiselivsmessen travel show, we provided Katharina Wiig, Product Manager, up to date copy and images for their website.