A destination with a unique selling proposition can be a blessing and a curse. Some places embrace their mojo and promote their distinguishing feature; others don’t want to be bracketed and prefer to remind visitors about all the other good things in their destination.

From sun to peace, witches to a frozen dead guy, here are a few choice examples of the weird and wonderful world of destination marketing.

Yuma, Ariz.

Yuma, Arizona - In a “super-secret meeting” on June 16, members of the Yuma Visitors Bureau unveiled a new promotion: Starting August 1, 2011, any guest staying at participating hotels in Yuma will dine free—if it is a cloudy day.

The thing is that Yuma is America’s sunniest city, with reliable sunshine 350 days a year on average.

Who decides if it is a cloudy day? If necessary, “Code Gloom” will be declared at 5 p.m. by a committee comprised of meteorologists and tourism bureau staff and members.

La Paz, Mexico – While tourism to Mexico in general suffers from perceptions of violence and drug wars, the La Paz tourism board is making hay by “declaring peace on the United States.” On June 14 it kicked off its campaign, called “La Paz: City of Peace and Abundance on the Sea of Cortez.”

“The awareness campaign ensures that La Paz—[which means] ‘peace’ in Spanish—is recognized as one of the world’s most safe and secure cities,” says Agustin Olachea, president of La Paz Tourism Board. “Those who have had the good fortune of discovering La Paz on their own have found that it offers a rare combination of overwhelming beauty, sense of community and balanced infrastructure.”

The campaign invades Redondo Beach, California, on June 28 to announce a declaration of peace amongst sister cities.

Ely, Minn. calls Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak on tin can

Ely, Minnesota – Voted “America’s Coolest Small Town” by Budget Travel magazine, the Ely Chamber of Commerce proved how cool they were by prowling the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis with nerdy string-and-can telephones, asking people (including Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak; see video) to talk via the cans.

The marketing campaign’s name? “Ely’s Calling You Back.”

Tunisia – The main reason Tunisia is in the news these days is because it triggered the revolutions that have spread all over the Middle East. Tunisia Tourism, in a controversial U.K. ad campaign conceived by ad agency Memac Ogilvy, is embracing the infamy and unrest.

One billboard in London, showing a woman getting a massage, says, “They say that in Tunisia some people receive heavy-handed treatment.” Another one showing ancient Roman ruins: “They say Tunisia is nothing but ruins.”

Salem, Massachusetts – Salem’s witch trials date back to 1692, and witch-related tourism began in the first half of the 20th century. Still, it’s fair to say that Salem has been desperately trying to get rid of its witches and witch-tourism for a long time now. As far back as 1925, a local newspaper mulled over re-branding Salem as the “City of Shoes.” In 2004, it tried to change from witchcraft to maritime history, but that didn’t work either.

Salem’s latest re-branding effort? Promote generic attractions, like the Salem Arts Festival, which includes Buckaroo Bonsai and belly dancing.

Tuff Shed in Nederland with Frozen Dead Guy

Nederland, Colorado – This town tucked in the Rocky Mountains west of Boulder is stuck with a frozen dead guy—literally.

Since 1993, the corpse of “Grandpa Bredo Morstoel” has been kept intact packed in dry ice in a Tuff shed here, in the hope that technology will be able to revive him one day.

Interest in the revival hopeful has turned into a huge annual festival, with 15,000 visitors coming to Nederland every March for “Frozen Dead Guy Days.” The town has coffin races, a slow-motion parade and “Frozen Dead Guy” look-alike contests.

The festival is now too big for the Nederland Chamber of Commerce to handle, so it wants the event to be professionally managed, but is scared that selling it to someone will mean the corpse and festival will get shipped out of town.

Photos: Yuma – Yuma Visitor’s Bureau site snapshot; Ely – Ely chamber of commerce; Frozen Dead Guy – 3Neus

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HSMAI Adrian Platinum Award Winners

The Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) presented awards to the winners of its 54th annual Adrian Awards at the New York Marriott Marquis on Jan. 31, 2011.

The awards honor companies and individuals in the hospitality, travel and tourism industries for excellence in the fields of advertising, public relations and digital marketing.

This annual roundup of award winners spotlights the top campaigns run by various companies and organizations, and is perhaps the best and only place to compare the industry’s disparate campaigns and advertising agencies.

Out of nearly 1,200 entries from around the world, the ones that met the entry criteria were listed by HSMAI as gold award winners for the award’s three categories.

Platinum award winners were chosen from the gold list for creativity and exceptional results. One “Best of Show” was chosen in each category from the Platinum list.

HSMAI Adrian Award 2010 Best of Show winners:

Advertising — The “Long Live Life” campaign by Barbados Tourism Authority (Agency – MMG Worldwide) celebrates the gift Barbadians (or Bajans) have for living. The BTA has grown its visitation by more than 15 percent since the campaign launched and has plans to expand the program worldwide in 2011.

Print and online executions depict travelers caught in the moment of having fun and tell the story of how they are transformed once they’ve been to Barbados. Visitors to the website are taught “Life Lessons” by Bajan teachers through video shorts on subjects such as Wukking Up and The Perfect Rum Punch.

“Winning these awards is a testament to the quality of the work but also the quality of our tourism product,” said BTA president and CEO David M. Rice. “When you come to Barbados, you can experience the best that life has to offer in a country that embraces tourism as its heritage and gift to the world.”

Hilton Up in the Air

Public Relations — Hilton Hotels & Resorts’ deal with Paramount Pictures for prominent placement in the Oscar-nominated George Clooney starrer Up in the Air was a big public relations hit in 2009-10.

The film’s lead character Ryan Bingham is a Hilton HHonors Diamond VIP member who spends more time in Hilton guest rooms than in his own apartment.

Hilton didn’t pay Paramount anything and simply provided free lodging for the unit wherever required along with more than 100 props to ensure an accurate depiction of the Hilton guest experience.

The company also ginned up a lot of publicity for the movie and for the hotel’s role in it by pushing it on in-room television and hold messages, not to mention printing it on more than one million key cards.

Huw Griffith, M&C Saatchi

Digital Marketing — M&C Saatchi Los Angeles put together the New Mexico Tourism Department’s “Day of Enchantment” campaign, a user-generated site that garnered 15,000 images from across New Mexico.

It is part of the $2.7 million “Be Enchanted” advertising and marketing campaign contract that M&C Saatchi landed from the New Mexico Tourism Department.

M&C Saatchi was also responsible for the state’s previous and controversial “Best Place in the Universe” campaign featuring aliens that earned an Adrian Platinum Award in 2007.

Other notable entries from the Gold and Platinum award winners list include:
1. DDB’s “Your Florida Side” campaign for Visit Florida
2. Ypartnership’s VisitMobile Napa Valley for the The Napa Valley Destination Council
3. Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp.’s “With Love, Philadelphia XOXO”
4. Weber Shandwick’s launch of Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas
5. MMG Mardiks’ launch of “World’s Unluckiest Traveler” for Travel Guard

Photo credits: Platinum Awards winners list—HSMAI eConnect; Up in the Air photo by Dale Robinette (courtesy Hilton Hotels & Resorts); Huw Griffith photo courtesy M&C Saatchi/Little Bird Communications

Two Las Vegas hotels and an airline teamed up with social media consultant Peter Shankman to host a holiday party in New York City for the “movers and shakers” of the social media world, marking another big step by the travel industry into the world of social media marketing.

Jet Blue, The Venetian and The Palazzo were some of the sponsors for the invitation-only party hashtagged #shankman2010 on December 15th.  Guests were chosen by their Klout scores and, in many cases, flown to New York City for the event at the Hudson Terrace.  According to Shankman, invites were sent to people who have high ranking Klout scores within specific industries.

Presumably, Jet Blue and the two Vegas properties were targeting big names in the travel and tourism industry, yet none of the names in travel I’m familiar with were tweeting about #shankman2010 last night.  Of course, it’s possible they were invited and couldn’t attend – after all, travel bloggers tend to be on the road a lot.

While social media enthusiasts and PR bloggers are still debating the wisdom of inviting guests to a party based on Klout score, it’s clear that travel companies are continuing to reach out to people who appear to have influence on Twitter and Facebook.  What’s not clear is how, exactly, travel companies are targeting “people within their industries”.

A Klout profile is supposed to measure not just how influential a user is, but within which arenas that influence is in.  It’s this ability to measure within a niche that ideally makes Klout so useful to companies like Jet Blue.  However, a quick look at the profiles of users I’m familiar with (including my own) shows that there is still ample room for improvement.  According to Klout, I’m an expert on iPhones and Google (I’m not) and talk a lot about a one-day social media conference I attended over two years ago (I don’t).

As a travel blogger, I’m excited to see more travel companies embrace social media and online marketing in general.  But as they look for ways to target potential partners, I’m concerned about the effectiveness of the tools that many seem to be relying on so heavily.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Jet Blue, The Venetian and The Palazzo weren’t looking to celebrate the holidays with people in the travel and tourism industry at all.  Which begs the question… who are travel companies partnering with in social media?

Photo Credit

The California Travel & Tourism Commission (CTTC) has put out a Sustainable Tourism Marketing Handbook that was put together in partnership with Cal Poly’s Recreation, Parks, & Tourism Administration (RPTA) Department.

The handbook provides examples of best practices for sustainable tourism marketing from 30 California based organizations, from LEED certified hotels to the California Academy of Sciences and many CVB’s.

Sustainable Tourism marketing handbook

Each of the 30 organizations was asked to name the marketing tools it used to turn its sustainability into dollars. The tools that were named the most were social media, business partnerships/networking, specific web pages and online PR efforts.

Social Media – 16
PR Articles – 11
Press Release – 11
Word of Mouth – 10
Branding sustainable efforts – 8
Newsletter – 1
Partnerships/ Networking – 17
Facility Design – 7
Signage – 6
Specific Web Pages – 11
Certifications – 7
Directories/ Maps – 8
Events – 9
Discounts/ Sweepstakes – 5

One of the best examples provided in the handbook is the case of BART, which was sitting on a pile of green tourism gold and didn’t know it. 

The Bay Area Rapid Transit was always a model of sustainable transportation service, since it started out as a green company with all-electric vehicles that produce electricity when they move. But it was for local transport, and had very little to do with tourism. BART began targeting tourism in 2005, and since then ridership from SFO to downtown San Francisco has increased by 400%.

They got into distribution through online travel sellers to expand their business nationally and internationally. They implemented a voucher system and partnered with the CTTC and the San Francisco Travel Association (formerly SFCVB).

BART has also taken advantage of social media marketing through Facebook and Twitter, and markets through the Internet by holding viral sweepstakes on their web site.

The CalPoly handbook has adapted the 37 standards of the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC) and it will be used to introduce sustainable tourism within the California tourism industry, with TourBench (www.tourbench.info) as a benchmarking resource.

If you need more help with integrating sustainability into the business, the UNEP has a step-by-step business management guide for integration of responsible environmental, social and socio-economic practices and principles into the day-to-day operations of a tourism company.

CalPoly-CTTC Sustainable Tourism Marketing Handbook – Download (pdf)