In the News

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/

Getting back to business

Massachusetts pushes city breaks

September 16, 2005 -- Tourism Massachusetts is kick-starting its international marketing activity after a two-year hiatus.

The US state will spend more than $1 million in the UK over the next 12 months — one sixth of its total international budget — to highlight the importance of its number-one overseas market.

Tourism Massachusetts president and chief executive Bill MacDougal led a trade mission to London back in August in an effort to drum up operator support for the state's new campaign. He met with tour operators including Virgin Holidays and gold Medal Travel, with a view to producing special offers on city breaks for the autumn and pre-Christmas markets.

“With a six-hour flight from the UK, city breaks are the obvious place to start,” said MacDougal. “We pioneered weekend breaks to the US in the 1990s, but we lost market share to New York after 2001.”

New York hoteliers slashed rates after the events of September 11, 2001 and Boston was seen as expensive by comparison. Now New York is booming once again, the Massachusetts capital hopes to piggyback on its success with keener rates and special operator deals.

This autumn sees the launch of a value-added promotion with American Airlines, which includes two-for-one deals on the Go Boston discount card, Boston Duck Tours and dinner at the Oak Room restaurant.

Joint print and radio marketing is also planned. Funway Holidays will launch its newspaper campaign to boost pre-Christmas sales.

“Funway is our first operator partnership and we’re looking for more to come to the table,” said MacDougal.

Tourism Massachusetts will boost its trade profile at World Travel Market in November after a three-year absence. It will also launch a consumer CD-ROM with links to 20 operator partners selling the state.

Among the product it wants to promote to the trade, Tourism Massachusetts will push the new hotels opening in Boston. This year saw the addition of a 163-room Courtyard by Marriott, as well as the 40-room Hotel 140. They will be joined next year by a 700-room Westin and a 424-room InterContinental, and in 2007 by a Mandarin Oriental property plus three others.

MacDougal said he aimed to return the number of UK visitors to peak levels within three years. Massachusetts saw a high of 500,000 visitors at the end of the 1990s. This has now fallen to around 230,000.

FORWARD TO NEXT NEWS ARTICLE-->
<-- BACK TO IN THE NEWS 

Home  |  Products |  Solutions  |  About Us  |  Contact Us  | Sitemap

©2006 Smart Destinations, Inc.
85 Merrimac Street, Suite 300, Boston, MA 02114
617-671-1001,