US Travel Awards

OK, things have been absolutely crazy! I will be finishing a few posts I started over the last two weeks! Unfortunately it has taken me a while to actually finish them because of how busy I am!

The US Travel Awards are a yearly competition for travel writers to compete for the best article about either the annual Pow Wow city or a United States destination. This is the second year for the competition. I also assisted last year as part of my professional experience hours, but as that was the first year, there were a lot of issues that needed to be ironed out.

This year I was responsible for rewriting the rules and entry form and making sure all of the due dates were appropriate. I never realized how much went into making sure every possible issue was covered in an entry form. Hopefully it saves us from all of the confusion from last year.

I had to contact the PR department at the United States Travel Association, my company's media designer (regarding the slide show that needs to be created), and also my boss. After talking to all of them, I was able to set the dates and get the official entry form sent out.

I also created a specific email account specifically for this contest to field questions and web entries for the competition. This has actually been so helpful because I can sort entries and questions and make sure that everyone's questions get answered as fast as possible! It also allows other people working on the contest to have access to everything we have received whenever they want.

This has been a lot more rewarding than I expected it to be. After last year I was actually dreading it, but by changing a lot of the rules and how the contest runs, I was able to save the company thousands of dollars and many many hours! I also saved myself from a lot of the very simple copying and shipping tasks that filled a lot of my available time last year.

The contest results are not announced until May, but I think this year things will really be a much better experience!

San Francisco

I left my heart in San Francisco...
So, one of the greatest parts of my internship is I get to do some traveling! Recently, I went to San Francisco to check on our attractions and to see how our vendors treated customers of CityPass. I also had to take pictures of all signs with our logo that are supposed to direct customers on how to bypass lines and use their prepaid tickets. Not only that, but I also went to a few tourism information stands who we provide with passes to sell and information and questioned them and looked to see if they mentioned our company. I almost felt like I was a bit of a spy, but it was a lot of fun!

Now I have been to San Francisco 8 or 9 times but this time I actually got to see a lot of the tourist attractions (for free!!!) and really experience it through the eyes of a business person rather than just a typical tourist. It was also exciting to see some of the new attractions on our pass!

With the San Francisco CityPass, travelers get to see the California Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Aquarium of the Bay, the SF Museum of Modern Art, the Exploratorium, a few fine arts museums, take a Blue and Gold Fleet Bay Cruise Adventure, and also have a 7-day passport for the Muni and Cable Cars!

On my last visit to San Francisco, I visited many of the attractions, but very briefly. This time, I convinced a friend to come along and spend some time actually touring the attractions. We also made sure to use all of the public transportations and directions provided within the booklets to make sure to get the exact same experience as CityPass buyers.

My favorite site this year was the California Academy of Arts and Sciences. It was newly reopened after they joined all of the old buildings together to form one large attraction. It has a living roof and floors of exciting exhibits including crocodiles (one is albino!!), an aquarium, a rain forest, a natural history museum. The line literally wrapped around the building, but when someone outside saw me and realized who I worked for I was able to bypass the line. However, this was not really what I wanted to happen. I will not lie though, it was great to avoid a two-hour long line! I will put up a picture of my friend and I on the living roof (the best part is you have a great view of Golden Gate Park from the roof!)... it was really interesting, and you can see it from a viewing tower across the way as well!

Also near the Cal Academy was the DeYoung Museum. This museum is very pretty, but sadly was not very well signed with our company's logo. I also do not like that so many of the special exhibits require customers to pay extra (especially because one of them was a fashion exhibit!) This is where the viewing tower near the Cal Academy is located!

Another interesting thing we did was go on the Bay Cruise. Although it was foggy, this allowed me a chance to talk to some CityPass customers and also do a little word-of-mouth marketing for the company.

I really enjoyed this little reconnaissance trip and thought traveling for work was very exciting. My boss has to make trips like this occasionally and I really think it must be an exciting lifestyle (at least while you are young and not tied-down)!

Cision

Some people might not know of Cision (formerly known as Bacon's) but it is a media monitoring program that is very useful in marketing and public relations. Company's can pay Cision to review any form of media outlet for a mention of their name. Depending on what your company is currently pitching, you could receive many mentions in one day and it finds all of them for you! It would be impossible to find everywhere you were mentioned if not for a media monitoring service.

With our Cision account, we monitor newspaper, magazine and online articles. The article is then listed in our Cision account and we can view a PDF of it. I divide them into categories (based on which of our cities is mentioned) and it helps us see whether or not we need to increase our advertising and press releases in particular places. It also is very beneficial when creating the annual plan so that we can see where we were successful and where we need improvement.

What I find most interesting is that on each article posted, you can see where someone highlighted your company's mention in the article. This means that someone sits and reads newspaper after newspaper every single day looking for one particular mention. This seems so monotonous, but I suppose someone has to do it! I am just glad it isn't me!

Magazines!

One of the jobs I have been busy with is making weekly trips to local bookstores and picking up any magazines that I think might find our product to be of interest. Being a relatively inexpensive and extremely family-friendly product, CityPass is a great idea for families and budget travelers. By getting even just a few sentences about our product in a magazine we are able to reach thousands upon thousands more people, which is always fantastic! About two months ago, we were featured in Shape and it was a great (and FREE!!) way to advertise! Anyway, back to what I actually have to do...

After I purchase all of the magazines I can possibly find, I take them back to the office and then I read all of them. I know this seems like a really fun, easy task, but after reading about 40 magazines cover to cover, you figure out that they all pretty much write the same thing and just have different titles for the article. If I see a spot in a magazine, such as a money saving section or a travel section, I find who wrote the piece and then check to find out if they are a staff writer for the magazine, or just a contributing writer. If they are a staff writer I find their contact information, if not I find the contact information of the editor of that section and eventually I compile a list of people to contact. My boss and I then go through the list and decide who to pitch our product to. From there we schedule a time to meet with them either via a conference call or on one of our business trips to the city they are located in.

We recently finished our list and pitches for about ten editors in New York City because my boss needed to attend a media tradeshow there. Hopefully it was worth all of the effort and we get mentioned in a few publications!!!

CityPass. It's the Ticket That Makes the Trip.

Well, I am a little late in starting this blog, so I will be posting a few times in the next couple of days to catch up!

In December I started my internship with CityPass. This internship is a great opportunity for me, because even though I only work with one other person (the Vice President of Communications) I am able to be extremely involved and I have had the opportunity to accompany her on media calls and to media trade shows. As my boss is very well connected in the tourism industry, I have been able to increase my number of contacts as well! This has really opened up a lot of opportunities for me post-graduation.

Well, I guess I should give you all an idea of what CityPass is....
From the CityPass Press Room:
"CityPass® is the company known for showcasing North America's most exciting cities by assembling ticket booklets of the most-visited attractions in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco, Hollywood, Southern California and Toronto, Canada. Convenience, value, and consistency have made CityPass a popular choice by sightseeing travelers.
CityPass allows marquee destinations to spotlight their premier attractions in a way that draws people throughout the city, to witness its neighborhoods, streetscapes and energy while encouraging the use of public transportation. Insider tips advise the best time to visit or cameo not to miss activities. Booklets represent savings of up to 50% less than if the tickets were purchased separately." (http://www.citypass.com/press/profile.html)


Well, that is all for now, I will update very soon with the projects I have been working on!