Minnesota Travel Outlook

Print This Post Print This Post

What do you feel the outlook is for Minnesota travel this summer?

Posted: April 18th, 2008

For more info
In categories: Blog

One Response to “Minnesota Travel Outlook”

  • Mark Peterson May 8th, 2008 at 11:21 am #

    Here’s what I am hearing from DMO’s and tour operators in the upper Midwest:
    First, F.I.T. (Frequent Independent Travel) and group traveling will continue. If the number of leisure trips made by a family, boomer couple or group is fewer, the chances are greater for each trip to be longer, with more experiences and activities.
    Second, Collective F.I.T. and traditional group travel is seeing very little change - and in fact, even significant increases in many cases - due to cost sharing and group purchasing. This is what has happened in Europe as their gas prices have increased over the past decade (as ours remained relatively stable). We are now experiencing what they did. We should not panic. We can learn from their experiences, and provide options for collective F.I.T. and group travel (increased investments in light rail, and tax/regulation incentives for privately-owned motorcoach and charter services). What do we do? Minnesota travel partners must identify new and unique experiences (i.e.: geo-caching, creative packaging, etc.) and creatively present them to capture travel business from new, or past, visitors - many of whom are a new generation of travelers, and who don’t know what dad and mom knew. Or do what dad and mom did. Not that they would even want to! We cannot rely on “they know about us, so they will come” attitude. This attitude is from a bygone era of leisure travel, and doesn’t work anymore. And the chances are, with so many travel opportunities available in today’s market, we have to act decisively and creatively to stand out from the crowd.
    We cannot afford to continue believing that tourism is accidental.

Leave a Reply