Crafting Tourism Industry Content

CRAFTING TOURISM INDUSTRY CONTENT By Jennifer Babisak The award-winning television drama â€Å"Mad Men† fed viewers much more than a weekly dose of suspense and eye-candy. Though the focus sometimes drifted more to Don Draper’s sexcapades than his creative mind, the show still gave an intriguing peek into the inner workings of an advertising agency. The Art of Emotional Appeal The tourism industry would do well to pay attention to some of the marketing strategies that Sterling Cooper Draper Price employed during the show’s seven seasons. For instance, Don was a master of crafting emotional appeal. This device isnt a spaceship, its a time machine,† he said of a Kodak slide projector, â€Å"It’s called a carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels, around and around and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.† The efficacy of such emotional appeal applies to much more than slide projectors. Emotive appeals work particularly well in the tourism industry, where destinations have spun their wheels with straightforward marketing techniques, targeting consumers’ rational purchasing-power, for far too long. Vacation Time and Stress-Management Americans have a track-record of exceedingly poor stress management. In addition to financial and health stressors, the widespread use of smartphones has brought twenty-four hour workplace connectivity and an unending barrage of horrific news headlines. You would think a chronic stressful lifestyle would send employees running for the hills come vacation time. But a recent Harris Interactive survey presented the startling finding that American employees only use 51% of their eligible paid vacation time and paid time off. Yes, you read that correctly. Chronically stressed employees are leaving vacation time sitting on the shelf. They want vacations, need vacations, and have the means to take vacations. All that lacks is an effective tourism industry appeal, motivating enough to cause Americans to break through their fog of stress and take the action of booking a vacation. And guess what? Bulleted lists reciting a destination’s most recent million-dollar renovations won’t spur the apathetic consumer to action. What these potential tourists- ripe for the persuading- need is carefully constructed marketing content brimming with emotional appeal. Emotional Content Standouts Major destinations are waking up to the value of using emotional appeal in marketing campaigns. Most notably, Las Vegas employed the incredibly successful tagline, â€Å"What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,† refining its image as a hedonistic escape from the boundaries of daily life. And the longest running tourism campaign in history, â€Å"Virginia is for Lovers,† began back in 1969. In the ensuing years, Virginia has capitalized on the marketing value of those words- posturing itself as a romantic getaway filled with warmth and charm. But emotive content goes beyond concise taglines. The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau recently launched a campaign to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The CVB sent out an emotionally-charged series of e-mails, thanking travel industry professionals for their coverage of the city and highlighting its advances in the decade since Katrina. The president of the CVB kicked off the campaign with an e-mail containing this message: , â€Å"So as we look back at what happened here 10 years ago, we want to give thanks to all of you who took us in when we had no place to go, helped us tell our story when we had no voice, helped us rebuild our homes and our city from ruin, celebrated our victories, showcased to the world what makes our city so special, and those of you who simply came to be our guests as we put the pieces back together. In the next nine days leading up to the 10th anniversary of Katrina, we will be sending you a short video, showcasing some of the improved aspects of New Orleans.† Tugs at the heartstrings, right? And it creates, or renews, an emotional attachment to the city, drawing visitors in more than a simple list of â€Å"improved aspects† ever could. Note in his message where he thanks writers who â€Å"helped us tell our story.† That’s the goal of effective emotionally driven tourism content telling the unique story of a destination. Finding the Right Words So how do you find the magical, emotive words that will lure droves of tourists to your destination? It’s actually a combination of careful research- discovering where your intended audience and your unique offerings intersect- along with meticulously crafted written content: Evaluate where your revenue lags. Do you need to boost business during the week or on weekends? During peak times or off-season? Having a concrete goal in mind will help you focus on the proper audience. Pinpoint your ideal tourist. Based on your revenue assessment, you should know whether you’re looking to attract more mid-week business travelers, family weekenders, or retired snowbirds. Familiarize yourself with the profile of your intended audience. Discover the desires of your audience. What motivates these people to travel? Are they seeking escape, adventure, serenity, or relaxation? Hone in on a specific emotional motivation. Review the offerings of your destination, searching for particular experiences that will appeal to your audience’s emotions. You don’t have to highlight your destination’s entire range- specific and well-defined focus on an emotionally appealing experience is in order. Carefully craft your content, highlighting your chosen experiences in a fashion likely to appeal to your chosen audience. Take care to tailor your writing style to the vernacular of your audience. Genteel retirees aren’t likely to respond well to copy littered with hipster slang, while millennials magnetize to key-words tailored to their generation. Maintain consistency across all modes of communication. Don’t cast your destination in one light on Facebook while presenting a different image in print brochures. Find your identity, articulate it well, and stay true to your message. Such a strategy holds great potential for payoff. After all, the travel and tourism industry has an annual economic impact of around $6.5 trillion U.S. dollars, worldwide. And a Choice Hotels International  survey found that Americans plan to spend 8% more on leisure travel and 5% more per trip in 2015 than they did the previous year. With carefully-crafted, emotionally-driven content, you can ensure that a good chunk of those $6.5 trillion dollars lands squarely on your destination’s doorstep.

Osama Bin Laden Research Paper Essays

Osama Bin Laden Research Paper Essays Osama Bin Laden Research Paper Essay Osama Bin Laden Research Paper Essay Osama Bin Laden; the mastermind of 9/11 Christian Hanke December 21, 2012 World History Period 1 Osama Bin Laden changed the world on September 11, 2012, when he orchestrated the 9/11 bombings on the World Trade Center in New York City. He has also formulated many other attacks including the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998 (Encyclopedia of World 1).Osama Bin Laden had a negative influence on societies, economies, and religion throughout the world because of his actions in masterminding many radical terrorist attacks, and because he created and funded al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden had a dramatic effect not only on the society of the United States but also worldwide. These radical attacks have resulted in changes to the way society conducts business, travel, immigration, and most importantly, how people view and trust each other. Simply put, it has in many ways resulted in a drastic change to many p eople’s behaviour. The attacks of 9/11 resulted in increased security exponentially.Read also   ANALYSIS OF OUR SECRET BY SUSAN GRIFFINAfter these attacks, airport security was amplified. Other security measures were implemented such as every time someone flies they are required to undergo body scanning; they have to remove shoes and belts, and all liquids over three point four ounces must be packed in checked luggage (Johanson 13). All these measures are now enforced to ensure maximum safety and security in airports. Instead of being able to breeze through the airport and board their flight, people are required to be there two hours early, which has become a necessary inconvenience and a time consuming practice.After the 9/11 attacks, people were very hesitant to fly because they were afraid. To help ease the anxiety of flying and perform the safety precautions, the United States created the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA hired over 50,000 people to work in airports across the country and have found to date over fifty million prohibited items, 5,000 of them being firearms (Johanson 7-10). Since Osama Bin Laden’s various attacks, some airlines like Canada 3000 and Swiss Air were on the verge of going bankrupt.To counteract this, the airlines crammed more seats in their airplanes, cut the complimentary food service, and reduced flights (Johanson 22). This inconveniences the passengers because there is less space and comfort on board and with less flights, not everyone may get a seat on their flight. Osama Bin Laden had a direct impact on the way we travel, has put anxiety in the minds of innocent people wanting or needing to travel on an airplane, and caused changes in the way commercial airlines conduct businesses.Osama Bin Laden has affected society worldwide through the lives lost in 9/11 and America’s war on terrorism. Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the many deaths that occurred as a result of his terrorist atta cks. In the wake of 9/11, approximately 3000 people died (Newsmakers 1). This not only affected the people that died, but also the people that love them, witnessed their death, their neighbours, the community around them, and also the world. An enormous amount of grief was felt throughout the world and many societies were humbled.Another way Osama Bin Laden has impacted society is the number of troops, particularly American, that have been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight in the war on terrorism. Approximately 70,000 troops were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan (Encyclopedia of World 23). This affected both their own lives and also their loved ones, not knowing if they are alive, putting a great amount of fear in millions of people’s lives worldwide. The cost of the war on terrorism has not only been human lives. Governments across the world have had to fund the increased deployments and make revisions in their budgets for the future.Finally, there has been a large death tol l incurred by innocent Muslims living in both America and on the battlefield. In retaliation to the 9/11 bombings, many Americans discriminated against Muslim Americans and many cases resulted in violence. Muslim lives have been lost fighting for Al-Qaeda and innocent civilians have died, being caught in the middle of this war. Osama Bin Laden is responsible for changing society and the lives of many Americans, troops and his own followers. Osama Bin Laden left his mark on society by his role in inflicting terror nto the hearts and minds of people worldwide. What is so frightening about terrorism is that it could happen anywhere and anytime. Bin Laden used this advantage of mystery to plant the seed of fear into people’s minds worldwide. In October 2001, according to a Gallup poll, forty six percent of Americans said terrorism was America’s biggest problem (Grier 47). This shows that Osama Bin Laden has had an enormous and lasting influence on the way Americans think a nd why they may do certain things.Osama Bin Laden had such a great influence on Americans and their minds that the CIA released a bounty worth $25 million for Bin Laden. New York City authorities put posters up around New York City showing again how much the capture of Osama Bin Laden was worth to America and how much he had affected society. This is evidenced in figure one, showing that officials want Bin Laden dead or alive. Osama Bin Laden destroyed billions of people’s peace of mind worldwide. The 9/11 attacks were carried out in conditions of everyday life, which was in essence using the element of surprise as a weapon.What is more terrifying is that he managed to install his people into our communities. These terrorists lived amongst us until Osama Bin Laden gave his orders. This effectively created a feeling of mistrust and paranoia after the 9/11 attacks. It certainly had a great impact on the state of mind of many Americans. Osama Bin Laden impacted society by influe ncing the modification of the security systems, being responsible for killing thousands of people, and putting terror in millions of people’s minds worldwide.While Osama Bin Laden had an extraordinary influence on how people around the world feel and behave he also had a negative impact on America’s economy. One way Bin Laden left his mark on the United States economy is that his actions caused the United States to spend billions of dollars for the military, defence, and security sectors. In the years of 2006-2008, military spending increased by $540 million to supply weapons and transportation to fight the war on terror and to deploy troops into Pakistan and Afghanistan to find Bin Laden (Griffin 17).This huge expense would not have been incurred if Bin Laden had not executed the attack on the World Trade Centre. These funds could have been spent on other things, like paying off the national debt or providing better education and healthcare for American citizens. Not only did Bin Laden cause the United States spend unnecessary money on finding him, but he also affected society by redistributing $540 million of potential funding which could have been used in improvements in society. This money was spent on defence and the security sectors.All three of these divisions boosted the United States debt to $14. 3 trillion (Burger 8). Osama Bin Laden cost the United States lots of resources, money, and time in the search for their peace of mind. Osama Bin Laden’s actions have caused friction amongst Middle Eastern and western countries, raising the prices of goods from these nations, in particular oil. After the 9/11 attacks, the unhealthy relationship between Islamic countries and America made Muslims reluctant to trade, resulting in an increase in the oil price. Before 9/11, oil prices were $1. 3, per gallon but they have increased to a current price of $3. 65 per gallon (Miley 16). Obviously, with the price of gas skyrocketing by over $2 after 9/11, resources have become very expensive to obtain and has put many Americans in difficulties financially because it is a huge increase that has to be accounted for. Other resources such as gold have experienced price increases. At the time of the 9/11 bombings, gold was priced at $271. 5 per ounce however it is now very expensive, rising to $1821 per ounce (Miley 13-14).The price of gold after 9/11 has risen over 600%, while the American dollar has lost one third of its value. Since the 9/11 attacks, the increased price of many plentiful goods within the Middle East has made it more difficult for people to pay for them. Another way Bin Laden affected The United State’s economy is due to his role in planning the destruction caused which resulted in the reparations the insurance companies owed, and the time and money spent cleaning the devastation.Firstly, in the attacks that killed over 3,000 people, it cost an estimated $1. 5 billion to clear the devastation where the Wor ld Trade Centre stood (Giffin 13). This cost in clearing the remains, moving it and disposing of it was a large expense which otherwise would have been used on other necessary expenditure such as education or roads. These funds were spent on an event that could not have been predicted or budgeted for. The cost to America can also be accounted in for the time of thousands of workers and the effort of volunteers.Another way this incident affected the economy is in the insurance claims that were owed to millions of people. These insurance claims include life insurance, auto insurance, and property insurance. The combination of lives lost and damage of properties led to and estimated $40 billion price tag in insurance claims (Giffin 7). This huge toll on insurance companies made many companies bankrupt, and if not bankrupt, premiums became very expensive for people wanting to purchase insurance.The cost of disposing and clearing the site where the World Trade Centre stood and the insura nce claims incurred after the attack crippled the economy, especially that of New York City. After the attacks of 9/11, many other struggles within the United States economy arose. One example of this is that the unemployment rate in the United States almost doubled. Prior to 9/11, the unemployment rate was four point nine percent but soon after, the unemployment rate rose to nine point one percent (Miley 7-8).As a result of the terrorist attacks over 600,000 jobs were lost, 226,000 of them in the travel industry (Miley 7-8). This huge cut of workers left many people struggling to survive, becoming homeless, and relying on welfare or other sorts of government aide to survive. With a large demand for supplies to aid homeless people, this increased the United States debt even further, setting the debt deeper by the millions. Thousands of small businesses were destroyed by the wreckage in New York City, from the collapse of the World Trade Centre and financially.Approximately 18,000 sm all businesses in lower Manhattan, particularly around the site of World Trade Centre, were either physically destroyed by flying debris or financially crushed without income to offset the costs to repair their shops (Giffin 8). These small businesses were particularly hurt because they did not have large cash reserves or other stores to make sure they were earning money. Instead, they were out of business for six weeks while repairs were being made in lower Manhattan.This lead to the large amount of unemployment that occurred and also left many people bankrupt. The attacks of 9/11 that Osama Bin Laden formulated had a demoralizing toll on America’s economy by increasing unemployment, destroying small businesses, skyrocketing the prices of goods and forcing America to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to ensure safety and to find the man behind all the chaos and devastation. Osama Bin Laden was a very influential person and he used his power to change his religion for the worse.One way that he did this is that he encouraged a violent form of Islam called Islamism. With his extreme wealth, inheriting $300 million at age thirteen when his father died (Encyclopedia of World 4), and power, he has influenced millions of Muslims to adopt his ideas and beliefs that encouraged violence. In Osama Bin Ladens â€Å"Jihad against Jews and Crusaders†, Osama Bin Laden encourages Muslims worldwide that it is their duty religiously to kill all Americans and their allies whenever possible (bin laden, Osama).Bin Laden promoted a very extremist form of Islam and was able to spread it throughout the Muslim world. He proposed to kill other people because they were of a different religion and belief, even though they may be innocent of any religious hate crimes. He executed these attacks in many different ways, including bombings, assassinations, and cyber attacks (Al Qaeda 2). This added to his repertoire as being very dangerous and helped his followers strive for their mission of the Jihad. He was very intolerant to other religions and wanted others to follow in his path.Bin Laden changed views about religion and religious tolerance worldwide by increasing the stereotypes towards Middle Eastern or Islamic people being terrorists. Many forms of violence against Muslims or people with dark skin and dark hair occurred after 9/11 in retaliation for the attack. Osama Bin Laden therefore negatively affected religion, because innocent Muslims are being discriminated against because of Bin Ladens attacks. Osama Bin Laden had a huge negative influence on religion, the economy, and society worldwide.He masterminded the 9/11 attacks, which devastated the affected communities, America and the world in general. He encouraged a skewed version of Islam that is violent and extreme. Osama Bin Laden put fear in billions of people’s minds worldwide through his terrorist actions that will never be forgotten. Osama Bin Laden, as the leader of Al-Qaeda an d the man behind 9/11, will always be infamous as the man who changed the way westerner’s view modern day terrorism. Al Qaeda. Crime and Punishment in America Reference Library. Ed. Richard C. Hanes, et al.Vol. 4: Primary Sources. Detroit: UXL, 2005. 214-232. Gale World History In Context. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. bin Laden, Osama. Terrorism Reference Library. Ed. Matthew May, James L. Outman, and Elisabeth M. Outman. Vol. 3: Primary Sources. Detroit: UXL, 2003. 109-118. Gale World History In Context. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. Grier, Peter. The Bin Laden Effect. The Christian Science Monitor 7 May 2011: n. pag. Print. How September 11 2001 Changed the U. S. Economy. Best Bank Rates | Compare the Best Interest Rates Today. N. p. , n. d. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. Johanson, Mark. How 9/11 Changed the Way We Travel. International Business Times 9 Sept. 2011: n. pag. Print. Miley, John. The Economy before and after 9/11. MSNMoney. N. p. , 7 Sept. 2011. Web. 10 Dec. 2012. Osama bin Laden and al-Qa eda. Terrorists and Terrorist Groups. Ed. Stephen Currie. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2002. 69-83. Lucent Terrorism Library. Gale World History In Context. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. Osama bin Laden. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 22. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. Osama Bin Laden. Newsmakers. Vol. . Detroit: Gale, 2012. Gale World History In Context. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. Wanted signs of Osama bin Laden have been posted on buildings, subway stations, and bus shelters America Under Attack: Primary Sources. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2002. Lucent Terrorism Library. Gale World History In Context. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. Washick, Joseph. 9-11 Effect on the Economy Remembering 9-11. Trulia Real Estate, Homes for Sale, Apartments for Rent, Local data. N. p. , n. d. Web. 2 Dec. 2012. (â€Å"Wanted Signs†) Figure 1