Orlando on call in 1st Brand USA campaign
Orlando is all but invisible in the new U.S. effort to attract more international visitors.
Brand USA, the new public-private partnership responsible for promoting U.S. travel destinations abroad, wants visitors to “Discover this land, like never before.” But based on the early portions of the group’s first marketing campaign, one thing the grand ol’ USA doesn’t include is Orlando — the nation’s top tourist destination.
Brand USA unveiled its campaign Monday at International Pow Wow, the annual gathering of tourism-and-travel executives that this year is taking place in Los Angeles. There were no images of Orlando or its theme parks in the group’s commercials, which are to begin airing overseas on May 1, or on its Facebook pages.
The TV spots are crammed with scenes ranging from the French Quarter of New Orleans to rock formations in Utah’s Arches National Park. Orlando is also absent from Brand USA’S official Facebook pages, including pages aimed specifically at British, Canadian and Japanese tourists.
Instead, the marketing group decided to focus initially ontourist drawssuchaswashington state’s International Kite Festival, the city of Atlanta’s Piedmontpark, andthewetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway in Kansas. Among the dozens of photos on the group’s website are three iconic Florida images: a Walt Disney World roller coaster, rockets at Kennedy Space Center and an alligator in the Everglades.
“Our objective at this point is to welcome the world and help them see the United States in a way they never have,” said Chris Perkins, Brand USA’S chief marketing officer. “Thisis thebeginningofacampaignthat will go on for many, many years.”
Brand USA is the result of years of lobbying by U.S. tourism executives — many of them from Orlando — to establish a publicprivate entity to market the country as an international tourist destination. It is funded by a fee levied on international travelers and by private and corporate contributions.
Perkins said that, in some cases, the group found that, if potential visitors were shown images they were familiar with, they were less receptive to the marketing message.
Universal Orlando, the Walt Disney Co. and Visit Florida are among the corporate partners that pledged cash and in-kind services to support the effort, which replaces a government agency, the U.S. Travel and Tourism Administration, shut down in1997.
“If the issue is, will Orlando benefit from this campaign as it’s configured today? No,” said Mark Johnston, a Rollins College marketing professor. “… It’s possible that repeat visitors to Orlando might see acampaignlike this and consider other options.”
But local tourism-marketing experts are not up in arms.
“I don’t think we lose anything,’’ said Gary Sain, chief executive of Visit Orlando, the local tourism-marketing agency. “If it inspires people to visit — and that’s what we want it to do — I’m not concerned that we don’t have an image of Orlando in it.”