Is BP now one of the Gulf Coast’s tourism promotion organizations? Apparently so, because it has started directly promoting the Gulf Coast as a destination in a new ad campaign called “Voices from the Gulf.”

BP Gulf tourism ad

In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which soaked the Gulf and its beaches, BP has given $170 million for tourism promotion to the various tourism promotion organizations in the four affected Gulf states.

This $170 million is in addition to the $5 billion from the BP fund that has been given so far to affected residents and businesses.

But the new TV and radio ad campaign that started airing in markets across the United States starting late August marks the first time that BP has directly promoted Gulf Coast tourism on air.

The core of the campaign is made up of two spots—Great Vacation and Best Place. Each ad features real business owners and visitors from Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi talking about what’s good about each state and the best places to visit.

They argue about whether visitors will enjoy the fresh seafood in Louisiana more or the sugar-white beaches in Florida, or maybe the great outdoors in Mississippi or the beautiful Alabama shoreline. The ad then turns to the one thing that they can all agree on—that the Gulf is the “world’s good time headquarters” and that “we’re 100 percent open for business, 100 percent open for fun.”

There are individual videos with each of the spokespersons, including Rip Daniels, who runs WJZD radio, is CEO of the American Blues Network and is a managing partner of the Almanett Guest House in Gulfport, Mississippi. You can see all the videos on BP’s YouTube channel.

If you’ve seen both these ads and those that were aired earlier by some of the Gulf Coast tourism organizations after the oil spill, you’ll notice that these BP ads hit right home, and better than most of the other ads.

No doubt visitors aren’t so concerned with the oil spill anymore because there isn’t any oil leaking out into the Gulf or showing up on beaches. That makes it easier to promote these destinations and focus on all the good things, instead of the oil.

Even so, it’s a pretty good effort by BP and allows the tourism organizations in all four states to leave the oil spill out entirely from their own messaging and promotional campaigns. In any case, it’s more free media for the Gulf Coast, and bound to be helpful.

Photo – BP

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It’s a difficult time for tourism marketing organizations, what with budget cuts, job losses and most visitors still unwilling to spend as much as before the recession. But do these desperate times call for desperado measures? Apparently so…

New Mexico: Whenever New Mexico governors are in trouble, they tend to call on Billy the Kid for help. Former Governor Bill Richardson did the same when he tried to pardon Billy the Kid. That created a big-enough ruckus to give the governor a much-needed diversion from his state’s problems.

Now, current New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez has decided to go the other way and put a $10,000 bounty on the hapless Kid. As part of a new New Mexico tourism campaign, she wants people to join a virtual posse online and then travel the state for real in search of the infamous outlaw. There’s even a dedicated website (www.catchthekid.com) to create a posse profile.

Designated locations will have clues that lead to the Kid and his hideouts. Participants have to be in the right place at the right time to catch him. There’s a smartphone “Catch the Kid” app, or participants can just take pictures and upload them to their profile pages.

Those using a smartphone stand to gain Billy’s “loot” along the way, which can be used to buy vacations, deals and meals on the website’s general store. The first posse to “capture” the kid gets a $10,000 reward.

Guerrero, Mexico: The Mexican state of Guerrero placed a help-wanted ad looking for beautiful women to sign up as “tourist police” to patrol its popular visitor destinations, like Acapulco. Ramon Almonte Borja, head of the state’s public security secretariat, tells CNN that the idea is to set up a police force “comprised of only women, preferably beautiful ones.”

The “police force” will be unarmed, and its job description is apparently to look good in specially designed police uniforms and to guide tourists. Makes you wonder why crime in Mexico is such a big problem… There are currently 52 openings, but that could change depending on how many women apply.

Cyprus: Should the Cyprus Tourism Organization (CTO) advertise in toilets? Thing is, a Cypriot found a CTO tourism ad pasted in a toilet in a soccer (football) stadium in Glasgow. Now CTO is taking heat for wasting ad budgets on toilets.

CTO explained that it was a freebie included in a larger campaign that featured television spots. One CTO employee suggested that freebie or not, the captive audience for the urinal ads had no other place to look, so it probably worked out very well.

New York, NY: In anticipation of the July 29 release of a motion picture filmed in New York City by Sony Pictures, NYC & Company has handed over its tourism promotion duties to little blue smurfs.

The smurfs have been declared official family ambassadors with the task of getting more families to visit the Big Apple, and they’re doing a pretty good job of it with Smurfs Week NYC.

“There are very few characters like the Smurfs—they have an appeal across generations all over the world,” explained Marc Weinstock, president, worldwide marketing for Sony Pictures. “That’s why we wanted to team up with NYC & Company to present Smurfs Week NYC. We’ve planned an exciting week of activities for visitors and New Yorkers alike—this is a great way to celebrate the release of the movie.”

Photos: NM Tourism, nycgo.com

(This post was updated on July 29, 2011, to remove the reference to Greece in the Cyprus section.)

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Feature 1: A new study on the power of destination marketing, conducted by Longwoods International and commissioned by the U.S. Travel Association, highlights the positive impact of campaigns like “Pure Michigan” and “Philadelphia: With Love.”

The report also outlines what happens when state tourism budgets are slashed, with Colorado as a case in point.

Power of destination marketing

“There’s a reason that America’s most prominent brands continue to increase their marketing budgets: it works,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association. “This study proves that destinations must operate like Nike, Apple and similar businesses that have followed the marketing path to success.”

“Legislators are ignoring basic economics if they slash destination marketing programs,” said the report’s author, Bill Siegel, founder and CEO of Longwoods International. “The return on investment of destination marketing programs is significant and nearly immediate.”

Power of destination marketing – Download full report (pdf)
Corporation for Travel Promotion begins $100 million agency search - AdAge
Washington State first to eliminate tourism agency – UpTake

Feature 2: The TSA is now warning about a new threat—implant bombers who have had explosives surgically implanted into their bodies. On top of all the other things, airport security may now also call for swab tests.

In a carefully worded statement which said nothing specific about the so-called belly bombs, the TSA simply says that, “as a precaution, passengers flying from international locations to U.S. destinations may notice additional security measures in place.”

TSA statement on latest intelligence information – TSA.gov
TSA warns of implant bombers, prepares fliers for swab tests – Mercury News

Here’s the rest of the week’s interesting news:

SEO 101 for travel bloggers – SEOmoz
Travel writers vs travel bloggers – Wilhelmus.ca

An app for where the girls are - Yahoo News Canada
SceneTap gains FAA approval for Chicago launch – SceneTap.com (press release)

FAA approves use of Apple’s iPad as electronic flight bag - AppleInsider
New air traffic control system at crossroads - AP

Airlines positioned for big gains in efficiency – NPR
Technology from space shuttle program a big hit on Earth - Palm Beach Post

1,000+ tickets a day being booked via AA Direct Connect – Priceline.com
Sabre launches black car, limo and airport transfer booking service – Sabre

TripAdvisor integrates rail networks with flight meta-search - TripAdvisor.com
Orbitz launches hotels iPad app for search-and-book experience – Orbitz.com

A getting-started guide for Facebook-Skype video calling – PCWorld
Gogobot launches game mechanics for Facebook Places check-ins – Gogobot.com (pr)

Study: PhoCusWright U.S. traveler insights - UpTake
Study: The effects of commuting on pilot fatigue – National Research Council

Photo – USTA

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TravelTechnology Weekly – TSA vs. Texas, AA vs. GDS…

Today is the last day for the Washington Tourism Office.

Some states have cut their tourism marketing budgets in recent years, but Washington State is taking things a step further—it’s eliminating its tourism agency altogether, becoming the first state to do so.

Closure of the office is expected to save about $1.8 million annually. But with tourism spending reaching $15.2 billion in 2010, and $1 billion generated in state and local tax revenue—based on the preliminary 2010 Travel Impacts Report/Washington State Department of Commerce and Washington State Tourism—the tourism budget, which even in previous years when it had reached up to $7 million, seems like a drop in the bucket considering the favorable return.

Determining just how much of the revenues can be pegged to the work of the tourism bureau is difficult however, and states are in a money crunch looking for any opportunity to cut funding from one program to save another in the short run.

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be any future tourism marketing for Washington State. The possible closure of the tourism bureau had been on the radar for at least a year, and a private group of tourism industry stakeholders formed the Washington Tourism Alliance in March, with the goal of sustaining statewide destination marketing campaigns and communications.

In just two months, the 17 founding partners, 16 associate partners and more than 120 members have raised more than $300,000. Expect the new group to also affiliate with founding member Seattle Convention and Visitors Bureau and its advertising campaign “Why Tourism Matters” to help promote the value of tourism to the state’s citizens and politicans.

Photo: Washington Tourism Alliance

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