-originally printed in the December 2, 2011 Lake Placid News
"What were you doing in Montreal, sir?," The U.S. border agent near the crossing to Plattsburgh said as he reviewed our identification. "We had some meetings about Lake Placid," said Jim McKenna, my boss and CEO of the Lake Placid CVB/Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism. "Lake Placid, huh? We let a lot of Canadians through here to go to Lake Placid."
We thanked him - for both the friendly crossing and confirming what we anecdotally knew - and drove on to Lake Placid.
We were just returning from a gathering with over 20 Quebec media in which I conducted a presentation about our destinations, featuring our flagship destination, Lake Placid, of course.
I've been fortunate to have had a front row seat as the destination marketing industry has navigated the relatively swift and dramatic evolution of communications technology. In fact, I have worked for the Visitors Bureau for so many years that I remember editing, and in some cases designing, the very first iterations of our destination websites - back when websites and the Internet were not yet adopted by general consumer markets.
In the early 1990's, we were still prioritizing the development, promotion and distribution of printed brochures to reach potential visitors. Now, we allocate most of our resources to developing content for our destination websites to gain search engine optimization, lead generation and direct bookings, and distributing that content via direct emails, social networking mechanisms and online advertising.
One thing that has remained a consistent arrow in our marketing strategy quiver is traditional public relations. It's true that I now spend my days developing that referenced website content by writing blogs, sending targeted promotional emails to our visitor database, uploading and linking videos and photos and networking socially via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and other mechanisms on behalf of our destinations. But there's one social network that I maintain in person as much as possible.
Though it too, has evolved as the world now embraces online news consumption, public relations still holds a place in our day-to-day communications. I still write and distribute news releases - online of course. And I spend a lot of time fielding requests year-round, providing statistics, history, events, story lines, photos and other destination resources for general and travel media. Proactively, though, we concentrate our efforts on a few target markets that represent our feeder markets - within a day's drive from our rubber tire destinations.
In addition to the populous areas of the northeastern U.S., I have concentrated our media relations efforts in the Quebec market over the last few years. In fact, I have a secret weapon: a contractor "on the ground" who speaks Quebecois, who acts as a conduit and filter to connect appropriate Quebec and Ottawa media with my office. We estimate that Quebec travelers currently represent about 10 percent of our overall visitors - and that it is increasing. This close-in market is a valuable one to our region.
This week, for the second year in a row, I conducted a presentation to a group of media - some now old friends, some new faces - at an intimate gathering in Montreal. Attendees represented a variety of online and print news, TV, radio, and lifestyle magazines. My goal was to provide an overview of all of our regions and their attributes, and to highlight the winter experience and winter sports heritage of Lake Placid. As always, I concentrate on tying our destinations' names to the Adirondacks, and illustrate that all of these wonderful experiences are only two hours away. And I conclude with an invitation for them to visit our destinations and to sample the variety of experiences we offer in a personalized familiarization tour.
These interactions have a greater value than an initial conversation over the phone or by email. The personal interaction provides an opportunity to promote our prioritized messages, answer specific questions, and the primary goal: forge personal relationships. After meeting in person on their turf our ours for the first time, ongoing communications are not with a stranger, but with a friend. And the resulting editorial coverage ultimately reflects that positive connection with the destinations.
Face-to-face meetings; the original social networking. I think I'll write a blog about that and post it on Facebook.
Kimberly Rielly is the director of communications for the Lake Placid CVB/Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism