The Alaska Travel Industry Association will be the leading industry organization promoting Alaska as a top visitor destination, communicating and promoting the Alaskan tourism industry as one of the state’s major economic forces and will be the respected voice of the industry for the growth of the industry, while remaining attentive to care for the environment, recognition of cultures and Alaska’s unique quality of life. 2 2008 ATIA Annual Report AlaskaTIA.org • Promote and facilitate travel to and throughout the state of Alaska. • Provide a broad-based association of individuals and companies with an interest in the visitor industry in Alaska. • Encourage the increase and improvement of quality visitor facilities, services and attractions throughout Alaska. • Plan and execute a statewide marketing campaign promoting Alaska as a visitor destination. • Increase awareness of the economic importance of the visitor industry. • Develop and implement programs beneficial to the travel supplier and consumer, which no other single industry component or organization would be expected to carry out on its own. • Initiate and cooperate with local, state and federal entities in developing and implementing programs, policies and legislation that are responsive to the needs of the industry and to intervene in those issues and initiatives that would directly affect the facilitation and promotion of travel to and within Alaska. • Work cooperatively with the state on tourism development and long-range planning. AlaskaTIA.org Photo2008 propertyATIA Annual Reportof ATIA3 MESSAGE FRO M THE CHAIR & THE PRESIDENT 2007-2008 was actually a year in which your association UNITED STATES FOREST SERVI C E achieved some substantive successes that will have significant LAT EE ramifications for the travel industry. ATIA also worked to address F F ATIA continued to support member concerns and maintained a selected issues for our membership and the industry that were strong position in favor of a simplified USFS flat fee structure not resolved and will continue to be challenging. Some of the for tour operations, guiding and outfitting fees for use in Alaska highlights of your Association and Board of Directors’ actions and USFS lands. Subsequently the USFS announced a substantially activities include: modified and improved fee structure. The revised structure has been generally quite well received by the travel industry. Addition- BOARD CHANGES ally the Forest Service has delayed the enacting of the new fee At the Board of Directors meeting and retreat in October 2007 a structure until the summer of 2010, thereby allowing businesses number of organizational changes to the association’s Committee to properly implement the pricing structure. structure occurred: HALI bu T SP ORTS CHARTER CHALLENGES The Membership Committee was made a permanent, standing Your ATIA staff and Board of Directors coordinated with members committee and Membership Chair duties were assigned to the and sports charter halibut organizations to retain a two fish limit association’s elected Secretary. in Southeast Alaska during the summer of 2008. Fortunately thru legal actions, a two fish catch limit was maintained for the summer The Board also recognized the increasing frequency of planning of 2008. This issue will continue to be of major concern to ATIA issues directed to the Board and the growing importance of and our membership as it appears that the North Pacific Marine assuring continued quality visitor experiences in Alaska. In the Fisheries Council is going forward with the one fish limit for past, Ad hoc workgroups were formed to deal with planning Southeast Alaska in 2009. issues on an as needed basis. More issues were also coming directly to the Board requiring their time during very busy agendas. The Board decided to follow the model of the STA B LE MARKETING FU NDING SOL U TION Marketing Committee and establish a Tourism Planning Commit- Once again during the 2008 legislative session the Board of tee that would have first jurisdiction over planning issues and Directors, the Government Relations Committee, our lobbyists would make recommendations to the board. The Board made the and you our members worked diligently to convince the Tourism Planning Committee a permanent, standing Committee Alaska State Legislature and the Administration of the impor- and made the Chair an elected position sitting on the associa- tance of changing the funding model for ATIA’s marketing tion’s Executive Committee. They also gave the Chair the ability to efforts. As part of our efforts ATIA hosted a legislative briefing establish sub-committees as needed to address specific issues for the 2008 session. We also engaged many of our members in such as Transportation/Infrastructure, Fish and Wildlife, Denali a number of government relations efforts such as letter writing, Access and Flightseeing/Air Taxi. giving testimony before House and Senate Committees, and participating in the annual ATIA fly-in to Juneau. We were ENALI ATIONAL ARK successful! House Bill 147 passed both chambers with only one D N P dissenting vote in the House. HB 147 provides three years of ATIA continued to work cooperatively with various stakeholders stable funding at $9 million which we will need to match at and groups to continue to move forward on the development of 30% (roughly $2.7 million). That’s an $11.7 million per year a Southside visitor center, which will afford another “park” expe- marketing program that will assist in reaching out to high potential rience in the north part of the Matanuska Susitna Borough ad- visitors. This was a win for Alaska’s Tourism Marketing effort. jacent to the Parks highway in the Curry Ridge area located at An increased marketing effort is especially important given our mile 134 on the highway. The good news is that the State of concerns about continued increases in marketing programs, Alaska authorized almost $9 million in capital expenditures to the state of the economy and continued competition from other begin the engineering process of creating a road that would lead destinations. After FY2011 a new model will have to be estab- from the Parks highway to Curry Ridge. This is definitely a major lished or we will revert to the previous plan which is no longer step in the right direction towards establishing a visitor center for workable. It is imperative for us to immediately begin working the south side of Denali National Park. The board also continued on a long term and sustainable model that will benefit the state, efforts to urge cooperative funding at the federal level for this the visitor industry and most importantly generate diverse visitor important infrastructure project. growth to Alaska. 4 2008 ATIA Annual Report AlaskaTIA.org Even though the marketing budget for FY08 was just less than INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL TRADE $10 million to market all of Alaska, our marketing efforts still ATIA continued to focus international marketing efforts in our achieved constructive results as we worked to attract visitors to key international markets of Australia, German-Speaking Europe, our state, which include: Japan and the United Kingdom and secondary markets of Korea, Taiwan and China. Emphasis has been placed on working with CONSUMER RESPONSE INQUIRIES the travel trade through training, sales missions, road shows and ATIA generated 534,816 requests for Alaska travel information marketing support. Reaching consumers is limited to public rela- during FY07, exceeding the goal for the year by 9.2 percent. tions efforts and web presence. Each office handles inquiry fulfill- ment through distribution of the Vacation Planner or a foreign language travel planner. TRAVELALASKA.COM ATIA’s web site TravelAlaska.com continued to achieve high traffic this year, with 1.1 million visitor sessions. Because the look of the PUBLIC RELATIONS site had not been updated for five years site refresh was launched Through our Public Relations efforts, ATIA continued to grow and for TravelAlaska.com in FY08, giving it a new, fresh look and feel. promote awareness of Alaska as a travel destination to media around the world. In addition to conducting press trips and provid- ing itinerary assistance, ATIA regularly provides over 1,200 travel IMAGE ADVERTISING writers with information on new visitor opportunities and images ATIA used television advertising to increase interest in and via meetings, phone communications and regularly scheduled provide an overall umbrella of awareness that improved the email communications. effectiveness of all advertising. Alaska TV ads aired on channels including The Travel Channel, Versus and National Geographic. This last year ATIA staff and our public relations contractor host- ed the sixth annual Alaska Media Road Show in Santa Barbara, California. The road show continues to be an effective tool in NORTH TO ALASKA reaching a variety of media and generating positive exposure for North to Alaska program, a partnership with the Governments Alaska. Additionally ATIA conducted a one day Taste of Alaska of Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon, focuses on the goal of media event in New York City which was deemed as an effective increasing the number of people interested in traveling through method to reach the important New York media and as a supple- Canada and into Alaska via the highway system. The strength of ment to the valuable annual media road show. the North to Alaska campaign generated roughly 86,896 exceed- ing goal by 20%. INSTATE TRAVEL AWARENESS It is very obvious high gas prices severely impacted long haul TV and radio advertising was run on local channels and a Get Out summer traffic. ATIA recognizes that for a substantial number of direct mail piece was sent to Alaska residents to encourage them businesses who serve the long haul road travelers, this is still an to visit TravelAlaska.com or request a State Vacation Planner so important segment of travel for Alaska. We will continue to work they could learn more about what there is to see and do in Alaska.