Travel South USA’s local mission
OVER 300 agents in Auckland, Brisbane and Sydney were treated to authentic southern hospitality and entertainment as the Travel South USA mission rolled into town this week.
Comprising 12 southern states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North & South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennesse), the firm’s purpose is to connect these destinations and their attractions, entertainment and hotels with the retail trade to influence traveller visitation and spend.
Speaking with Travel Daily, Travel South USA president and ceo Liz Bittner said “we’ve seen tremendous growth of Aussies coming to the south.
“We’ve posted a 53% increase of visitors in 2015 over 2014 and we expect the 2016 figures to be double digit again.”
In 2015 there were 192,000 Australian visitors who spent over US$273 million during their stay and represented 13% share of the market of visitors to the US south.
Bullish about future growth, Bittner said “there’s a lot more product in tour operator catalogues, there’s great new lift with airlines with gateways getting travellers into the south more easily and Aussies have already been to the other places in the US and are now looking for a nice, new region.”
Continued marketing and trade education will be key to driving growth with Bittner saying “we’ve been doing a lot of co-ops with operators and retailers including Excite Holidays, TV with Flight Centre and Sunrise, a marketing program with Helloworld and many other operators like Contiki, Trafalgar and Evergreen.”
“We’ll be running an outreach program year round to get the story beyond the main gateways and looking to get involved in agent e-learning.”
“We’re beyond inspiring; we need to get to the nitty gritty and show agents the essential need- to-know things their clients will want,” Bittner concluded.
American Airlines was a major sponsor of the sales mission.
Pictured at last night’s event from left are Jo Palmer, md Gate 7; Liz Bittner, president & ceo Travel South USA and Damian Horne, singer and musician from Nashville Tennessee.