The Philadelphia Flyers are down two games to nil against the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final, but that hasn’t stopped Visit Philly’s play to combine support for the Flyers with tourism promotion for Philadelphia .

Visit Philly got off to a good start before Game 1 by branding Chicago as losers with a bit of gentle ribbing in an online ad issued via their “With Love, Philadelphia XOXO” campaign, published on Facebook and their uwishunu blog.

Visit Philly Stanley Cup ad 1

The ad refers to the Flyers’ series wins earlier over the Devils, Bruins and Canadiens, with the implication that the Chicago Blackhawks are about to join the ranks of the teams vanquished by the Flyers.

New Jersey had some more salt rubbed into their wounds before Game 2, with a Memorial Day weekend ad.

Visit Philly Stanley Cup ad 2

This ad implies that they’d rather spend the Memorial Day weekend in Philly watching Game 2 on TV than visit Jersey Shore.

But it’s not just about internet snark against rival cities. Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC), which runs VisitPhilly.com, is printing 750 posters and 400 t-shirts before Game 3.

Also, Visit Philly has been in touch with Chicago Tourism officials, and they’re promoting both cities. Visit Philly put out a press release titled “A Tale of Two Cities: Philadelphia and Chicago” that lists sports curses on their teams along with tourist attractions and things to do for visiting fans in both cities.

So they’re not only offering tourism advice to Blackhawks fans visiting Philadelphia for the three Games at Wachovia Center, but also helping Flyers fans camped out in Chicago for Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 with pointers about what’s good in Chicago. 

With five games to go, it’ll be interesting to see how far Visit Philly intends to take this, and how much it benefits them by the time the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup.

The quote reflects a sentiment widely echoed in destinations which get more than their fair share of tourists and tourism dollars.

Anti-Tourist Sign

The point here is not to pile on tourists or tourism, but to list the reasons why many locals end up feeling contempt or hatred for tourists.

NYC tourist sidewalk

1. Alley Rage:- Earlier this month, some wag in New York painted up a divider on a sidewalk, instructing pedestrians that one side was for New Yorkers and the other side for Tourists.

It was quickly wiped off, but not before Mark Armstrong (Director of Content for Bundle.com) took a picture of the segregated sidewalk and generated enough buzz to attract Mayor Bloomberg’s attention.

In Venice, Italy it’s called Alley Rage. Massimo Cacciari, the Mayor of Venice, has even talked about an ‘entrance tax’ for the over 50,000 daily visitors.

If you have locals feeling aggrieved about tourists, start by educating locals about the need to be polite. Spain last year organized ‘friendliness seminars’ to teach grumpy Spaniards to smile and be nice to tourists.

Hawaii Superferry

2. Quality of Life:- The 2010 Mercer Quality of Living survey of 221 cities showed Honolulu as the second most pollution-free city in the world, with little traffic congestion and plenty of clean water and fresh air.

One of the main tenets of responsible tourism is not to harm the environment. But with the economy heavily dependent on planeloads of tourists, concerns about the quality of life of locals in the Hawaiian Islands is not very high up on the list of priorities.

That leaves small communities to defend their way of life on their own. The Hawaii Superferry, for example, was a spectacular failure largely due to heavy opposition from locals and environmental groups. 

Note to Hawaii and similar utopias – Come up with some sort of long-term sustainable tourism plan which doesn’t pit locals against tourists.

Orlando

3. Urban/Rural Divide:- In many states, one city sucks up all the tourist dollars while the rest of the state is left trying to deal with the fallout. 

Millions of tourists make their way through Central Florida every year without spending a dime on the way to the theme parks in Orlando, where they then shell out thousands of dollars.    

Tourists visiting NYC spend heavily, and then visit Buffalo and Niagara Falls for cheap day-trips. Nevada has the same problem with Las Vegas and Reno.

The state governments, tourism bureaus and county officials here need to come up with an action plan to promote more destinations and develop facilities to entice visitors to stay overnight, instead of passing through.

Forks, WA twilight tourists

4. Culture Shock:- Sometimes a destination gets unwillingly thrust into the limelight. Like Forks, WA which is now famous as the setting of the Twilight books and movies. Twilight author Stephenie Meyer chose it specifically because of the miserable weather.

Not exactly a tourist magnet then, and the kind of people who enjoy living in Forks won’t be the kind who enjoy twilight parties with drunk vampires and a carnival atmosphere out on the street. 

No big surprise that they hate the tourist groups, the entrepreneurs and tourist service providers who have moved in to cash in on the Twilight boom.

This is the same as the Dutch cannabis coffee-shops or the Indian slum tours made famous by Slumdog Millionaire. The locals want to be left alone, but they’re too famous an oddity to hide from curious tourists who come to gawk and take photos.

In such cases, tourism bureaus should issue brochures and train tour guides to help tourists understand the difference between cultural immersion and invasion of privacy.

Photo credits (from top) – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

An Oxford Economics study, commissioned by Airbus, puts the economic impact of the initial air travel shut for the week of April 15-21 due to the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano at $4.7 billion in lost GDP. 

GDP Impact of Volcanic Ash Shutdown

The GDP impact goes up to $5 billion taking into consideration the subsequent sporadic cancellations and shutdowns upto May 24, 2010.

The highlights from the study (for the week of April 15-21, unless stated otherwise):-

- Global aviation sector losses = $2.6 billion
- Global loss in visitor spending at destinations = $1.6 billion
- Productivity losses from stranded workers = $490 million
- Global GDP impact = $5 billion as of May 24, 2010
- Total passengers impacted = 7 million

Outside of Europe, the Americas were the mostly badly affected, with a GDP impact of $957 million. Nearly 462,000 passengers were impacted in the Americas, which cost the airlines a gross loss of $396 million and hit destinations to the tune of $378 million. 

Meanwhile, the IATA came out with traffic figures which show that global passenger demand dropped 2.4% in April. Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s Director General and CEO, lamented that “The ash crisis knocked back the global recovery – impacting carriers in all regions. Last month, we were within 1% of pre-crisis [recession] traffic levels in 2008. In April, that was pushed back to 7%.”

But the worst might be yet to come. Icelandic President Ólafur Grímsson is warning European governments that another volcanic eruption is round the corner. This time, its Katla – another volcano bigger than Eyjafjallajokull – which is rumbling and sending signs of an imminent eruption. 

Europe and the global aviation sector now need to learn how to keep planes in the air even in the presence of an ash cloud and more volcanic eruptions, because based on their historic record, Eyjafjallajokull and Katla erupt in tandem, and it’s going to continue on and off for a couple of years.

Oxford Economics study summary - Download (pdf)

Related posts:-
Ash Thursday Knocks the Wind Out of European Aviation
Winners & Losers of the Icelandic Volcano Shutdown

Ginger McGuire, a passenger onboard United Express flight 8080, was found alone and sleeping in the plane by the cleaning crew in Philadelphia at 3.50 am on May 25, over 3 hours after the flight landed after a short 65 minute flight from Dulles.

Sleeping on a plane

Trans States, the airline which operates the regional United flight, said it was standard procedure to make sure all passengers disembark after a flight. They’re still trying to figure out how and why Ginger McGuire got left behind on a small 50-seater jet.

McGuire is the third airline passenger in the last 2 months who has been forgotten by the flight crew and later found by maintenance crew in an otherwise empty plane.

Last month on April 7, Jessica Cabot, an 18 year old blind girl, was also flying on a United Airlines plane from British Columbia to Florida when she was left behind at a stopover in Chicago.

Jessica was told to wait until the other passengers disembarked, and then a flight attendant was supposed to escort her out. No one came, and instead she heard the plane door being shut and latched. The maintenance crew found her and escorted her out of the plane.

Two months ago on March 6, British passenger Kris Lines fell asleep on an Air Canada Jazz flight from Calgary to Vancouver, after a long trans-atlantic flight from Heathrow. He was woken up by a mechanic and found himself on an empty plane parked in an airplane hangar an hour and a half after the flight landed.

A few years ago, 63 year old Joan Cummings, a disabled grandmother, was left alone (and wide awake) on a Ryanair plane for an hour after the flight from Spain had landed at Stansted Airport. She was supposed to be waiting for a special lift which never arrived. The crew left and so did the pilot, and then even the cleaning crew left. She was eventually ‘rescued’ after a worker spotted her wheelchair outside the plane.

But the worst hangar experience was probably endured by Scott Bender, also from Philadelphia. He was still asleep on a US Airways plane when it landed at Birmingham International Airport, and got left behind. Unfortunately for Bender, he awoke all by himself.

The lights were off, the cabin was dark and he was all alone. Scott Bender assumed the plane had crashed and he was dead. When he get off the plane, he found himself in a different type of hell - detained by airport security for intensive questioning, because this happened in October 2001, just a month after 9/11. After he got through that, he found he couldn’t even get his baggage.

Photo – dreemreeper