Ep 11 DMO Account Management and Nocto Tourism with Aqua’s Travis McClure
In this episode, we delve into the burgeoning phenomenon of nocturnal tourism, as we engage with Travis McClure, a distinguished digital strategist and senior account executive at Aqua. Our discourse elucidates how modern travelers increasingly seek destinations that offer exceptional nocturnal experiences, such as stargazing and the observation of celestial events. We explore the significance of destinations that possess minimal light pollution, thereby enhancing the visibility of the night sky. Additionally, we discuss innovative marketing strategies tailored to promote these unique attributes, exemplified by our client Punta Gorda, Englewood Beach, which fosters a conducive environment for such pursuits. Join us as we navigate the intricacies of destination marketing, highlighting both emerging trends and the challenges inherent in this dynamic field.
IN THIS EPISODE
- 00:07 - Introduction to Aqua Talks
- 02:43 - Exploring Nocto Tourism: A New Travel Trend
- 08:29 - Exploring Unique Destinations in Florida
- 09:32 - Exploring Emerging Travel Trends
- 13:20 - Challenges and Innovations in Destination Marketing
- 17:17 - Advancements in Destination Marketing Technology
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Takeaways:
- The podcast discusses the transformative potential of marketing for various sectors and audiences.
- Aqua Talks emphasizes the importance of innovative strategies in capturing audience attention.
- Listeners are introduced to the emerging trends of nocturnal tourism and astro-tourism in contemporary travel.
- The hosts highlight the significance of fostering meaningful connections with audiences through marketing.
- Travis McClure shares insights from his extensive experience in agency account management and tourism.
- The discussion also covers the impact of economic factors on travel demand and destination marketing strategies.
Transcript
Welcome to Aqua Talks where marketing meets bold game changing ideas.
Speaker A:Join your hosts Larry Aldrich and Maddie Dudley as they explore the art and science of cutting through the noise, capturing attention and fostering meaningful connections with your audience.
Speaker A:Whether you're a destination marketer, government contractor, or simply passionate about the transformative power of marketing, Aqua Talks offers engaging discussions, fresh insights and actionable strategies designed to inspire and inform.
Speaker B:Hi and welcome back to Aqua Talks, the podcast for marketers.
Speaker B:Whether you're just getting started out or you are a professional in the space, I'm Maddie and this is a podcast brought to you by Brunsis Technology, a service disabled veteran owned.
Speaker B:I'm joined by my co host today, Larry Aldrich.
Speaker C:Hello, I'm Larry Aldrich, president CEO of Brensys Technology and Aqua Marketing.
Speaker C:Today we're joined with Travis McClure.
Speaker C:We're going to talk digging into digital strategies with the expert digital strategist and our account manager, Travis.
Speaker C:How are you doing today, Travis?
Speaker D:Doing great.
Speaker D:Good to be with you guys.
Speaker D:Thanks.
Speaker B:Happy you're here.
Speaker B:Before we get started into the Q and A, I just am dying to hear about your most recent trip.
Speaker B:We booked you right after you came back from vacation.
Speaker B:It actually has to do a lot with the trend that we want to discuss today around nocto tourism and sort of astro tourism.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D:Just returned from a spring break trip with the family.
Speaker D:We spent four nights up near Fairbanks, Alaska.
Speaker D:A lot of things to do up there in the winter, but our main reason for going was to try and see the northern lights.
Speaker D:My wife and I had tried to do a see them at in Iceland a few years ago.
Speaker D:No luck.
Speaker D:It was overcast the whole time we were there.
Speaker D:So we were crossing our fingers this time that we were going to have better luck and we really did.
Speaker D:We saw three out of the four nights and it definitely, you know, kind of just blew our minds and exceeded expectations.
Speaker D:First night was the best out of all of them and you know, lights are just kind of exploding overhead and just everywhere you look they were all around us moving and all different colors.
Speaker D:So yeah, you know, definitely a passion of mine and you know, just so happy we did it.
Speaker D:And check that off the bucket list.
Speaker C:Sounds like you had a good time.
Speaker C:Those for of us that are still trying to figure out what is nocto tourism.
Speaker D:Yeah, I mean I think it's just a new trend with, with travel where people are specifically seeking out destinations that maybe they have a.
Speaker D:You know, a lot of national parks are certified dark sky zones or just other areas that are away from the city lights, where you get much better viewing of the stars at night or the northern lights.
Speaker D:Or maybe it's even special events like the solar eclipse that happened last year, or lunar eclipse, things like that.
Speaker D:But, you know, there's really destinations all around the world that might have unique attributes for different parts of viewing the night sky.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And one of them is actually our client Punta Gorda, Englewood Beach.
Speaker B:They have far less light pollution because they want to protect their nocturnal species that live on the beach.
Speaker B:So turtles don't crawl into hotel rooms, so they go dark.
Speaker B:And that makes it a lot better for viewing the stars.
Speaker B:And there's actually a guide there called Starry Night Florida who does astro tourism tours.
Speaker B:Yeah, pretty cool.
Speaker C:So, Travis, you're one of our account managers on a lot of our big tourism contracts.
Speaker C:Want to give us a little bit.
Speaker C:Give our listeners a little bit of a background on you, a little bit of what you're doing with some of our account?
Speaker D:Yeah, well, background prior to Aqua, I mean, I've really been in agency account management all or most of my career.
Speaker D:I've worked across a bunch of different industries, you know, retail, healthcare, education, technology, hospitality.
Speaker D:I had worked with some hotels and resorts in hospitality, and I really found it to be more creative, more fun, you know, rather than a focus on sales or transactions, you know, it was a lot more about inspiring people to visit new places, enjoy their lives.
Speaker D:So I just thought it was a lot more fun.
Speaker D:And a few years ago, when the opportunity with Aqua came up, you know, it was perfect, you know, because I love to travel myself, loved hospitality.
Speaker D:So it was just a really good fit.
Speaker D:So I've been with Aqua for a little over three years now, worked on several different destination accounts throughout Florida.
Speaker D:But, you know, it's a lot of fun because every destination, even though all of them at the moment are in Florida, each one of them is totally unique, has completely different offerings, different cultures, different dining, things to do.
Speaker D:So that's kind of the fun.
Speaker D:A lot of the fun about the job is just getting to know our clients and what's unique and different about them and how we can help promote their destinations.
Speaker B:I would love to hear about a campaign that you successfully managed with Aqua in the past three years that you've been with us.
Speaker D:Yeah, well, we.
Speaker D:We did a lot of work with Visit Lauderdale, which is the CVB for Broward County, Florida.
Speaker D:Had a really big project with them to develop a whole new brand campaign a couple years ago.
Speaker D:You know, they, the client really wanted something that expressed the destination's welcoming nature.
Speaker D:They're all about diversity, inclusivity, you know, really welcoming people from all walks of life.
Speaker D:So through the brand development work, we came up with a campaign that was titled Everyone under the sun, which really had a double meaning, right?
Speaker D:You know, of welcoming people from all walks of life, like I said, but also under the sun, literally in terms of sunshiny, sunny Florida.
Speaker D:So it was a, it was a creative campaign, lots of fun with the production.
Speaker D:The people in the, in the ads were really the hero.
Speaker D:Looking for a lot of authentic, diverse people that were from, you know, locally in South Florida, all ages, all, you know, all different colors and accessibility.
Speaker D:Like everything was really featured and heroed in the ads.
Speaker D:And we also shot the videos in kind of a fun and unique way where start out with the ad and we're kind of close up on someone in a certain situation.
Speaker D:Throughout the destination, you think it's one thing and then the camera pans out and it's something totally unexpected.
Speaker D:Like for example, really kind of the iconic ad that came out of the campaign was a close up of a woman walking along the beach.
Speaker D:But you can't really tell where she's at or what she's doing.
Speaker D:Camera pans out, you see there's a whole group of diverse people lined up along the shoreline of the beach looking out at the horizon and she joins this line of people at the end that are all holding hands and everyone under the sun tagline comes up.
Speaker D:So it's just really kind of a unique eye catching spot that you wouldn't normally see from other destinations.
Speaker D:So it was a lot of fun to produce, you know, just really solid campaign.
Speaker D:And then in the end with the results, I mean we saw record breaking tourism metrics for the years following the launch.
Speaker D:And then always as a bonus, we, we won a lot of awards.
Speaker D:So we got accolades from Visit Florida's Flagler Awards HSMAI Adrian Awards.
Speaker D:So that's always kind of the cherry on top to just let you know that it was some good work and appreciated from industry professionals.
Speaker C:Also, what's one of the most underrated aspects of destination marketing that needs more attention?
Speaker D:You know, we also work Lauderdale was a bigger destination in Florida, but we also work with some smaller destinations throughout the state.
Speaker D:So I think it's cool for some of these, you know, lesser known places to spread the word, invite people to visit.
Speaker D:You know, a lot of people just kind of focus on the most popular places to go in the country or throughout the world.
Speaker D:But I think it's cool to, you know, go plan a great vacation at some of these more off the beaten path destinations that have their own unique culture, you know, history and food and attractions and things to do that might not be some of your mainstream.
Speaker D:Go to places that people focus on.
Speaker D:So, you know, at Aqua, working with some of these smaller destinations, it's taught me a lot of things about places in Florida that I had no idea about.
Speaker D:And I've lived here for over 30 years.
Speaker D:So it's been fun to visit with the clients, see their destinations and experience some of the unique things that they have to offer.
Speaker B:What are some emerging trends that you're seeing in destination marketing or travel tourism that we're using towards working with clients?
Speaker D:There's so many trends, it seems like things change every day.
Speaker D:And, you know, social media, of course, is a big influence on that.
Speaker D:You know, we touched on nocto tourism before, but a couple that I like and are kind of relatable to myself personally, Set Jetting is one.
Speaker D:I think it's been around for a while, but maybe becoming even more popular.
Speaker D:Set jetting is where you're, you know, you're seeking out a destination based on locations that have been featured in movies or TVs.
Speaker D:I've done this myself, going to places like, like I mentioned Iceland before or Dubrovnik in Croatia where they filmed several scenes from Game of Thrones.
Speaker D:So that was really cool to see some of those iconic kind of backgrounds.
Speaker D:Also, my family and I were big national park buffs.
Speaker D:And so we've hit over 30 national parks at this point.
Speaker D:But a few places that were fun that we, we picked out.
Speaker D:If you guys know the movie the Shining with Jack Nicholson, there was several scenes filmed for that movie at a couple national parks.
Speaker D:One was, or the inside of the hotel from the Shining was at the lot, a famous lodge at Yosemite National Park.
Speaker D:If you remember the famous Red Rum elevator scene with the twins.
Speaker D:So that was really cool to kind of recreate that scene with our kids in front of the elevator.
Speaker D:Also, Glacier national park in Montana, there's a famous road that cuts through the park called Going to the Sun Road.
Speaker D:And the very beginning of the Shining, there's a scene with the car driving through this winding road alongside these beautiful mountains and lakes.
Speaker D:And that's Glacier National Park.
Speaker D:So we visited both of those and it was a lot of fun to see that.
Speaker D:So I think the set Jetting is kind of a cool and fun spin to add to your vacation.
Speaker D:Another one that I like and try to do for our own Vacations is digital detox.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:So this is where you're purposely going to places to disconnect from your digital day to day life.
Speaker D:You know, avoiding social media, maybe turning off the date, the daily news, not watching your normal TV shows every night, things that you would do at home, which is screen time.
Speaker D:So for me, it helps to reset, recharge, just kind of get away from everything and come back, you know, a little more energized for your day to day.
Speaker D:I'm also part of an organized group of dads that do camping trips throughout Florida with our kids.
Speaker D:And we have a rule that no electronics for the weekend on our camping trips.
Speaker D:So it's, it's amazing once you set off limits to electronics to all the kids, how much fun they actually have just running around, enjoying the outdoors, using their imaginations, rather than just staring at a screen all day and, and becoming zombies.
Speaker D:So, um, it's a lot of fun and I love to just kind of get away from the digital world for a while.
Speaker B:I'm gonna adapt a couple of those to upcoming trips that I have.
Speaker B:Those are great ideas.
Speaker B:I loved all of them.
Speaker D:Yeah, go for it.
Speaker C:Even camping?
Speaker B:Yeah, even camping.
Speaker B:You're not a camper, Larry.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, I have no problem.
Speaker C:I was in military.
Speaker B:Oh, of course.
Speaker C:We slept in holes.
Speaker D:It's a different kind of camping.
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe.
Speaker D:Not that we're not roughing it that much.
Speaker C:What are some common challenges you see in travel and destination marketing and how do you overcome them?
Speaker D:Well, I mean, economics, you know, the economy is always a challenge.
Speaker D:You know, travel demand is highly correlated to the economy and how that's doing.
Speaker D:So I think we always need to be flexible and on our toes, adapting based on that.
Speaker D:You know, we can, we can change a lot of things from, you know, the types of audiences we're targeting, going after different demographics that might broaden our reach or reach new people that we didn't before to try to bring that demand back up or adapting to the different feeder markets.
Speaker D:You know, typically destinations have a set top tier feeder markets where most of their visitors are coming from.
Speaker D:But if we're seeing demand dip, maybe we need to reach out and broaden and reach new people in other feeder markets or evolve with the flight schedules.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker D:You know, airlines are constantly going through their own economic struggles as well.
Speaker D:So flights could be coming and going or more frequent or less frequent from different tests, from different feeder markets, I should say.
Speaker D:So a lot of times we may need to change what, what feeder markets we're looking at to help offset some of those demand hits that may be coming from the economy.
Speaker D:I mean, another thing that I think is really relevant for Florida is crisis management, especially with the hurricanes that we've had in recent years.
Speaker D:Hurricane season in general can be a deterrent for visitors in the late summer, early fall period.
Speaker D:But we can offset that maybe by promoting special events or, you know, lower flight costs or lower hotel rates, things like that.
Speaker D:And then, you know, with the Gulf coast getting a lot of hits over recent years, you know, then it becomes a struggle after a direct hit to let potential visitors know that we're reopen for business.
Speaker D:And we want visitors.
Speaker D:You know, outside of Florida, that's been a really big deal for North Carolina.
Speaker D:They had all that major flooding from Hurricane Helene that was just totally devastating.
Speaker D:And they were, you know, completely shut down for months.
Speaker D:But, you know, now those businesses need the tourists to survive now that they're reopened.
Speaker D:So I know a lot of the, the local CVBDs there in, in Carolina are, you know, just being very blatant with their messaging, like, we need visitors, Please help us.
Speaker D:You know, these local businesses need tourists to survive.
Speaker D:So I think those are a couple challenges that are definitely top of mind and things that we deal with on a day to day.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay, so something you didn't mention was emerging tech, AI and big data.
Speaker B:How does that affect destination marketing strategies?
Speaker D:I think it's cool.
Speaker D:I mean, it's changing every day.
Speaker D:Just like social media.
Speaker D:I mean, it's, it's a lot to stay on top of and manage, but I think it's bringing.
Speaker D:Bringing out a lot of new opportunities, especially for destination marketing.
Speaker D:Because again, like I mentioned at the beginning, I came from more of a retail background, which was super granular in terms of analyzing metrics and data and attribution and all that stuff to tie back a specific ROI to our advertising.
Speaker D:So when I first started with Aqua a couple years ago, I felt like the destination industry, marketing industry was maybe a few steps behind that and not out of the industry's fault.
Speaker D:It's just a different type of marketing.
Speaker D:It's not retail and you're not looking at a specific transaction.
Speaker D:And destinations themselves can't always track transactions because they don't have booking engines themselves like a hotel would.
Speaker D:So.
Speaker D:But there's a lot of new technologies that destinations are using now and more of them coming out that are helping us connect the dots between our marketing efforts and an roi.
Speaker D:A couple that we're using with our clients are like Placer AI and Zartico are some of the tools that are helping us with analysis and optimization.
Speaker D:So Zartico they aggregate a lot of data based on visitor spending or travel patterns economic impacts.
Speaker D:So that helps us make decisions on what we can do better moving forward with our marketing and maybe where we should focus our dollars or our efforts.
Speaker D:And then the other one I mentioned, Placer AI that's a little bit more location focused and foot traffic focused.
Speaker D:So they can use cell phone data to track people within specific locations at specific times.
Speaker D:A little creepy but very cool at the same time.
Speaker D:So that's really useful for things like big events like Visit.
Speaker D:Lauderdale used that with their big Tortuga Music Festival which is a huge beach concert and festival for three days in April.
Speaker D:Every year draws thousands of visitors.
Speaker D:But with the help of data from Placer AI, they were able to evaluate specific foot traffic to the concert to the local hotels and restaurants within that concert time frame and compare it year over year to other weeks that did not have the event and show that incremental lift in terms of visitors.
Speaker D:So I think those are a couple tools that are really useful and again are helping us connect the dots between our efforts and an roi.
Speaker C:That's a lot of information.
Speaker C:Very insightful.
Speaker C:Thank you for being with us today and thank you for all you do with all of our destination clients.
Speaker C:I know they really enjoy working with you and you bring a lot of value.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thanks Travis.
Speaker D:Thank you too.
Speaker B:If you are interested in learning more about Travis or about the podcast, please please go to aquatacs.com you can find our socials there as well as if you want to like subscribe all that good stuff, that's where you can find it.
Speaker B:To find out more about Aqua, go to welcome to aqua.com.
Speaker A:You'Ve been listening to Aqua Talks where marketing innovation takes center stage with bold ideas and actionable insights.
Speaker A:Ready to take your strategies to the next level.
Speaker A:Visit aquatacs.com to book your free consultation and explore resources that empower you to thrive in today's fast paced marketing world.
Speaker A:Until next time, stay bold, stay inspired, stay imaginative.
