The eTourism Summit has been a great success these past 10 years. Jake and I started discussing the format that would fill in the gaps between all other seminars and conferences 10 years ago. Seems in some ways like 10 years was just yesterday.

This year I was the lunch speaker, and was interviewed by Jake via Skype. I had a prior committment and could not attend the conference, but wanted to address the audience with questions and insights about the changes that are underway for DMOs and others in the industry. I caused a stir with my comment about Advertising as we know it being dead.

To read the interview go to http://thetouroperator.wordpress.com/ and get the whole story... would love to add your emails to others that I am getting. it is quite a dialog!

till next time, Leah

Client RESULTS is always the focus… but Recognition ROCKS! We all work hard to get stellar results on every web site we design and build and every online ad campaign we develop. We measure it all so that boards can appreciate the real power of online marketing done correctly. But it is especially sweet when we get recognized by experts in a national peer review for awards. I’m so happy and proud of our teams - - clients and USDM.net - - for winning four prestigious IACs and two Web Awards. IAC Awards Best Regional Online Campaign for Greater Miami and the Beaches Best Travel Online Campaign for Tourism Toronto Holiday Campaign Best Leisure Online Campaign for Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism Best Events Online Campaign for Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau Best Leisure eMail Campaign for Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority Web Awards Best Events Web Site for Greater Miami and the Beaches POW WOW Standard of Excellence for Howard Group Marriott Sandestin® Web site Thank you, Clients, for being the most forward-thinking partners an agency can work with. Some of you have been with us 10 years or more and some have just started to work with us, and we all know we are on winning teams. It’s a partnership and a TEAM WIN! Recognition Rocks! Leah Woolford

Client RESULTS is always the focus… but Recognition ROCKS! We all work hard to get stellar results on every web site we design and build and every online ad campaign we develop. We measure it all so that boards can appreciate the real power of online marketing done correctly. But it is especially sweet when we get recognized by experts in a national peer review for awards. I’m so happy and proud of our teams - - clients and USDM.net - - for winning four prestigious IACs and two Web Awards. IAC Awards • Best Regional Online Campaign for Greater Miami and the Beaches • Best Travel Online Campaign for Tourism Toronto Holiday Campaign • Best Leisure Online Campaign for Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism Best Events Online Campaign for Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau • Best Leisure eMail Campaign for Atlantic City Convention & Visitors Authority Web Awards • Best Events Web Site for Greater Miami and the Beaches POW WOW • Standard of Excellence for Howard Group Marriott Sandestin® Web site Thank you, Clients, for being the best, most forward-thinking partners an agency can work with. Some of you have been with us10 years or more and some have just started to work with us, and we all know we are on winning teams. It’s a partnership and a TEAM WIN! Recognition Rocks! Leah Woolford

I just returned home from a two week trip to visit some client destinations in Florida and Tennessee. In both places I was met with happy clients who are seeing great returns on their  online advertising spend. For one of our biggest resort clients we ran some early spring specials and it really paid off. The resort measured results at 8x return on the investment and are extending the promotion to gain more market share.  In Tennessee we have vacation rental companies who are realizing the advantage of using our Top Ten Tips for Marketing in this economy. We use some of the attributes that vacation rentals have over single hotel rooms and target consumers who are most likely to visit the destination and consider vacation home rental. Our key learnings in this market segment are based on the first research just released by PhoCusWright about vacation rental management in the U.S.  We were a partner in the research and gained some key information from custom questions we submitted for the survey.

Vacation rentals are becoming more appealing tas a travel option this year primarily because of the economic slide and consumers needing to budget more than ever before. As I have stated, consumers will travel and have a deservability about their vacations, t they are trying to cut back on restaurant meals and other expenditures on the trip. We market our vacation rental clients in a number of ways online, primarily in very aggressive search marketing and eMail advertising. Douglas Quinby, a friend of mine and leading analyst at PhoCusWright says "It's a whole new ballgame and a $25 billion-plus market".

The biggest return we have seen on the online advertising has been where we finely target the top ten markets for our clients and then offer compelling reasons to buy... not deep discounts, but value. It is working and man, there is nothing better than happy clients : )

till next time...

Leah