As Haiti moves from emergency aid to the long-term task of rebuilding homes and communities, the equation as regards tourism has changed somewhat. There are urgent choices to be made – by international travel companies, aid organizations and tourism officials in Haiti. 

Jacmel, Haiti

One company which has made the right choice is Choice Hotels & Resorts. One day before the earthquake hit Haiti on Jan 12, Choice announced plans to open two properties in the Southern coastal town of Jacmel – a 32-room Comfort Inn hotel and a 120-room Ascend Collection member hotel. 

The Comfort Inn project is an existing hotel which is being converted. Choice has sent relief supplies directly to the property, which is still standing and providing shelter to guests and local families who lost their homes in the earthquake.

Brian Parker, VP emerging markets and new business development for Choice Hotels, says that the quake may set back timetables, but Choice Hotels still stands by its committment to Haiti and will be opening both properties. 

But it doesn’t always work out as nicely as this. Take, for example, the case of Cap-Haïtien, Haiti’s second largest city on the north coast. Before the quake, Cap-Haïtien’s airport was supposed to get a $30m upgrade to recieve international flights. Also in the works – a road connecting Labadee to Cap-Haïtien’s famed world heritage tourist attractions – the Citadel of Laferrière and the ruins of Sans Souci Palace.

Now, with the central government in shambles and the world’s attention focused on Port-au-Prince, these projects don’t look like a sure thing anymore. Cap-Haïtien Mayor Michel St Croix says they desperately need about $7 million to improve the roads and infrastructure.

They might have managed it on their own too, had they not been cut off from the tourist dollars of Labadee, 5 miles west of Cap-Haïtien. Labadee is Royal Caribbean’s private resort, on lease from Haiti until 2050. After a $55 million expansion in Labadee by Royal Caribbean, the fee per passenger was raised from $6 to $10.

Labadee, Haiti

Until 2004, the $6 per passenger paid to Haiti was divvied up, with $2 going to the National Treasury, $2 to the Tourism Ministry and $2 to Cap-Haïtien. But since the military coup in 2004, all of it goes straight to the National Treasury.

Last year, out of the 900,000 odd people who visited Haiti, 600,000 were Royal Caribbean cruise passengers at Labadee who never saw the rest of Haiti, and didn’t stay overnight. A majority of the rest were expats visiting their homes. Simply put, Haiti does not get many tourists.

Haiti now has a choice – they can go back to things as they were, or make changes to ensure the tourism dollars are spread around. They could:-

1. Put together a plan for international aid to help develop tourism infrastructure in towns all over Haiti.
2. Share tourist tax revenues with the provinces.
3. Convince cruise companies to stay longer. Offer transportation and safety for cruise passengers who want to visit nearby towns.

According to Patrick Delatour, the Haitian Tourism Minister, the initial cost of Haiti’s reconstruction is expected to be around $3 billion, most of which will be focused on rebuilding Port-au-Prince. If even a small fraction of this amount is spent on developing tourism infrastructure outside the capital, we’ll be looking at a vastly improved Haiti in 5-10 years.

Jacmel photo by Spyder00Boi; Labadee photo by Rob Inh00d

LVCVA study

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) recently retained Vegas based firm Applied Analysis to create a series of reports analyzing the economic impact of its operations and Southern Nevada’s tourism industry.

One of these reports – The Relative Dependence on Tourism of Major U.S. Economies, is particularly interesting since it offers a treasure trove of statistics about the size and scope of 23 major tourism economies in the U.S., in terms of employment, visitation and spending. 

The report gives you a handle on how much tourism actually means to each city, relative to their overall economy. As per the data, Las Vegas, Orlando and Atlantic City top the list of the most tourism-dependent economies in the United States.

Employment:- Nationwide, 10.2 percent of the workforce was employed by the leisure and hospitality industry in September 2009. Las Vegas was way above the national average, with 29.3% of its workforce employed in leisure and hospitality.

Leisure & Hospitality Employment data (Source:Applied Analysis)

Atlantic City came in second at 27.4% and Orlando ranked third with 18.9%. Honolulu and New Orleans ranked 4th and 5th with 14.0% and 12.9% of employees working in the hospitality & leisure industry.

In terms of wages (average compensation) for leisure and hospitality workers, Vegas again topped the list at $38,141, followed by Atlantic City at $37,087 and Orlando in third place at $27,930. Median compensation among the comparison areas analyzed was $22,902, nearly 50 percent less than the compensation in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Share of GDP:- Nationwide, leisure and hospitality accounts for 3.8 percent of GDP. Atlantic City was at the top of the list, with leisure and hospitality accounting for 23.3% of its total GDP. Vegas comes in second with 19.5% and Orlando a distant third at 10.2%.

Leisure & Hospitality GDP (Source:Applied Analysis)

The report suggests that a comparison of the wages and employment data against the leisure & hospitality GDP of gaming and non-gaming economies shows that the presence of gaming appears to contribute significantly to a leisure and hospitality product output at a higher rate per employee.

Visitation & Spending:- Applied Analysis looked at visitation in two ways – absolute number of annual visitors, and the ratio of the number of visitors for each permanent resident. Atlantic City gets a whopping 77.9 visitors for each resident, while Orlando and Vegas get 23.8 and 21, respectively. The only other city on the list with a double digit ratio of visitors/residents is San Diego, with 10.4.

Visitor spending, which is one of the key indicators relevant to this study, accounts for 2.8 percent of gross national product (median value). Atlantic City tops this metric, by far, with visitor spending as a share of its GDP accounting for 56.6%.  Orlando comes in second with 29.9% and Vegas is just behind with 28.9%.

Visitor Spending as share of GDP (Source:Applied Analysis)

The fact that the LVCVA asked for this report indicates that the beating Vegas took in 2009 has opened their eyes to the dangers of being a one-trick pony like Detroit. If they decide to do something about it, such as diverting resources towards infrastructure development for other sectors, how will it impact tourism?

Should Vegas forget about diversifying and focus on doing what they do best? After all, last year was an aberration, and Vegas has already hit bottom and started the rebound. According to the latest visitation statistics, gaming revenue for the Strip and Clark County grew year-on-year for the first time in 2009 in November, and citywide room occupancy was almost at par with the previous year.

Further reading:- Applied Analysis – http://www.appliedanalysis.com/; LVCVA – http://www.lvcva.com/

Just in time for Super Bowl XLIV, Miami has a heated debate in progress over how to fund over $200 million worth of renovations and upgrades to the Dolphins’ Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Sun Life Stadium, Miami

Proposed solution? Hit the tourists with a higher bed tax. The problem? Florida state law caps hotel taxes at 6 percent, and Miami-Dade is already maxed out.

So they need to amend the laws in order to be able to hike the tax. The Dolphins have submitted this plan to state legislators, requesting that the 6% cap on taxes be removed.

The Sun Life Stadium is privately owned by billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross, so using $200m worth of public funds to fix it is not a good idea to start with. If you top that off by taxing tourists to come up with the funding, that only makes it a lot worse.

To be fair, the existing 6% hotel tax being collected in Miami-Dade County is earmarked for funding  the $442 million debt Miami-Dade County is taking on to build the new Florida Marlins baseball stadium, so there’s no real objection to the concept of hotel taxes being used for stadiums. Even so, hiking taxes on visitors is a fairly extreme move, especially at a time when the state’s tourism economy is right on the edge.

There’s also another equally controversial plan being cooked up by Florida state legislators – to allow the development of massive Vegas style casino resort projects. The Florida Gaming Equalization Act aims to approve 5-7 such casino projects in Florida, with local referendums at selected spots, followed by grant permits issued by a state gaming commission.

The prime mover behind this bill is Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. Adelson tells the  Miami Herald that he’s prepared to invest in bringing mega-convention centers and casinos to Florida that would include shopping centers, theaters, spas, hotels, and restaurants.

He’s talking big numbers – a $3 billion casino resort with 7000 new jobs. Preferred locations, as per Adelson, would be in Tampa Bay and Orlando. No doubt the heavy investment, and the additional permanent boost to the economy in terms of jobs, increased visitation and tourism would be a lifesaver for the tourism economies in Florida cities.

On the other hand, Orlando’s biggest mojo is it’s brand as the no.1 family-friendly destination in the US. How these mega-casinos impact that brand will no doubt be a big factor in the legislative debate. Walt Disney Co. is surely not going to be happy about this, and if they step into the debate, it becomes a national issue.

Regardless of the merits or demerits of these individual projects, Florida legislators should take note that changing the law of the land to facilitate billionares’ pet projects isn’t going to win them any votes.

Photo by Seinar

EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 conference takes place March 24-25, 2010 at the Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

EyeforTravel

This annual conference usually provides a clear picture of where the travel industry stands, in terms of use and integration of social media for travel, and more importantly – where it’s going to be in the near future.

In 2008, it was all about the buzz factor, and how to use social media to create brand awareness. Last year, the focus of the conference was on the monetization of social media channels and tracking the ROI.

This year, the panels are front-loaded with presentations about the strategic importance of social media and it’s integration into various aspects of your business. Fascinating evolution, and seems to indicate that travel companies have accepted that social media is here to stay, and it has serious company-wide implications.

A few highlights from the agenda for the conference:-

Strategic Importance - Josh Steinitz, CEO, NileGuide, will be asking and answering questions about how you can get top management to buy into your social media initiatives, and make it work as a part of the company’s overall corporate objectives. You’ll find out how to foster a corporate culture where social media plays a vital role across all departments and communcations.

Brand Reputation -  One very important subject being discussed by this panel is whether individuals within the organization should express their own personalities when responding or follow the ‘brand personality’?

Speakers for this panel include:-
John T. Peters, President & CEO, Tripology;
April Robb, Communications Specialist, TripAdvisor; and
James Zito, Director of Interactive Marketing, Morgans Hotel Group.

Travel Search & the Social Web - “The Future of Search and the Social Web – Adding the Emotional Sentiment into Travel Search” – UpTake CEO Yen Lee will be presenting on the convergence of social web and search, and what the integration of social networks into Bing and Google mean for the future of search. 

Questions that will be answered include  – How can the emotional sentiment of searching for travel be incorporated into the search stage of the travel cycle? What technological developments support this development and how can you adapt your search strategy?

Facebook - “Best Practices to get the Highest ROI on Your Social Media Initiatives” – Many travel companies have a token presence on Facebook, but if you want a meaningful presence with a significant ROI and understand how customers prefer to use Faceboook and engage with them, then don’t miss this one.

Speakers for this panel include:-
A Representative from Facebook;
Fiona Ashley, Director of Marketing, Travelmuse;
Shashank Nigam, Founder & CEO, Simpliflying; and
Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood.

Twitter - “Twitter and the Rise of Micro-blogging – What Are the Implications for your Travel Business?” - Twitter success stories and how travel companies are using Twitter. Use micro-blogging to reach out to customers on an individual basis and put the human back into your brand, and learn how to deal with twitter booking services. Predictions for the future – how travelers will be using twitter and how you can prepare your business for it.

Speakers for this panel include:-
Tom Romary, CEO, Yapta.com; and
Michael Perhaes, Assistant VP Marketing, MGM Grand.

For more details and registration info, visit http://events.eyefortravel.com/social-media.