Articles tagged “san diego”

Social media and all the bells and whistles of digital age marketing can do wonders for parks and destinations, but sometimes old-fashioned word-of-mouth works just as well. And like anything, holding events at your park always brings increased awareness of what you have to offer.

One big force in the travel industry, Southwest Airlines, did what was right as a good corporate citizen (or at least was worried about a brand hit), and is ending ties with SeaWorld after a 26-year relationship. Others in the travel industry see only dollar signs.

SeaWorld's brand hit has parallels to the reputation damage that fellow Florida operator Carnival Corp. has had to deal with over the last two years. Carnival is only now recovering, and SeaWorld's struggles may turn out to be more protracted because ending killer-whale shows is a decision SeaWorld isn't ready to make.

SeaWorld has been trying to emphasize how it rescues sea creates and allegedly humanely treats orcas in captivity, but a segment of the public just isn't buying it, as SeaWorld's recent attendance figures show.

Tourism boards are starting to realize that high-quality content including interesting and actionable information performs better and spread more organically than a staged corporate campaign ever could.

San Diego would maintain a thriving tourism community for some time without a marketing board, but its functions remain too important to the city’s long-term economic health for the mayor to let its doors close.

There's no word from Travel Channel whether this will be a regular series -- it wasn't in the new show line up that included such low points as Bret Michael's RV show -- but it looks like the best chance the network has to capture the audience that loved the now-departed Bourdain.

There are multiple travel apps that attempt to integrate social media and destination content, but tourism boards are in a better position to leverage the tools given their established authority and influence -- and relatively deep pockets.