Find new ideas at federal agency, partner websites

BY JULIE P. HEIZER,DEPUTY DIRECTOR, INDUSTRY RELATIONSNATIONAL TRAVEL AND TOURISM OFFICEU.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

The travel and tourism industry has an important role to play in maintaining the United States’competitiveness in today’s ever-expanding travel and tourism marketplace. The world gets smaller every day as the number of options available to global travelers grows exponentially.

The United States can’t afford to rest on its laurels as one of the great travel experiences.That’s where you come in. As an industry leader, you play a critical role by continually adding fresh product offerings so that clients always have something new and different to experience when they choose the United States as their vacation destination.

Here are some “hidden resources” that can help in your product development work. These websites focus on three different aspects of U.S. tourism product: the great outdoors, cultural heritage and Native American experiences. These options can help keep your product newand exciting for many years to come.

Not just a saying“America’s Great Outdoors” isn’t just a saying. It’s a factual assessment. Various federal land- and water-based agencies came together last month at IPW, the industry’s largest annual sales gathering, to promote a set of itineraries that feature fabulous American scenery.

Those agencies include National Wildlife Refuges, National Marine Sanctuaries, and Parks and Scenic Byways.

Of course you know about the National Park Service and its website (nps.gov), but you might not know that a dozen brand-new itineraries have been posted to americasgreatoutdoors.com, a website that is hosted by the National Parks Promotion Council. On this website youcan pull an itinerary that allows your clients to experience the wonders of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, cycle Oregon’s spectacular state trails or discover President Theodore Roosevelt’s home. Those are just a few examples.

Itineraries will continue to be added to this site. If you are inspired by the examples of America’s Great Outdoors but want to find product in a different part of the country, you can also reach out directly to the National Parks Promotion Council, which can connect you to the individual federal partners who developed the itineraries.

A ‘great get’From an international perspective, cultural heritage travelers are a “great get.”

According to the National Travel and Tourism Office’s “2014 Cultural Heritage Traveler Profile,” cultural travelers stay longer while visiting the United States and spend more money here than general leisure travelers. International cultural heritage travel to the United States has increased each year since 2010, so adding some cultural heritage “spice” to your product stew would not only give you something new to sell to your domestic clients, but it just might enticesome new international clients.

Whether you’re looking for new and different cultural heritage tourism assets to refresh existing itineraries, or you’re looking for a whole new set of ideas, there are two good sites where you can begin your planning:

The first, culturalheritagetourism.org, is an aggregator site organized into categories such as arts districts, world heritage sites, state heritage sites and national landmarks.

On theculturaltraveler.com, you can view destination itineraries that have already been developed; they include foodie tours, family fun, U.S. history and artisan trails.

An example of the destination itineraries available on theculturaltraveler.com

Increased international interestContinuing along the cultural heritage travel path, but with a slightly different twist, Native American tour product is becoming increasingly popular. At nativeamerica.travel, you can find information on more than 40 stellar Native American experiences, which are as varied as the tribes themselves.

From tours such as “American Indians and Route 66” to “Ojibwe Cultural Workshops,” and from “Thriving on the Bayou” to the “Acoma Pottery and the Four Matriarchs,” you’ll find product

ideas and activities you can incorporate into existing itineraries. You can also use these tours to build new product that would be of significant interest to your clients.

The American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association operates this website on behalf of its member tribes, and new product is regularly added to it. The AIANTA team is always willing to work with you one-on-one if you would like to add a Native American component to your travel product line but don’t see anything in an area of the United States that you currently sell.

From the international perspective, the number of travelers visiting Native American sites has set records for each of the last three years. In particular, China, the U.K., France and Germanyhave continued to show increases in travel to Native American lands.

However, the international market is one that must continually be worked, making new and exciting product available to keep interest in the United States piqued and to prevent thebeen-there-done-that mentality.

Each of these websites is a tremendous resource for building exciting new product. Please do your part to maintain the United States’ competitive edge in the global travel and tourism arena by adding and offering something new for 2017!