Skift Travel News Blog

Only 8% of U.S. tourism boards strongly prioritize addressing climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero. In contrast, 62% of European tourism boards and 29% of Canadian tourism boards have made it a top priority. That’s according to Sojern’s “State of Destination Marketing 2024.”

The report is based on a survey of over 300 destination marketers by the Digital Tourism Think Tank, commissioned by travel marketing platform Sojern, and endorsed by Brand USA, Destination Canada and the European Travel Commission.

Compared to other regions, regenerative tourism is not a strong strategic focus for U.S. tourism boards. Only 28% in the U.S. have made it a focus, while over 40% of Canadian and European tourism boards have made it one.

Tourism boards differ regionally when it comes to diversity and inclusion. In the U.S. and Canada, over half of tourism boards prioritize celebrating racial and ethnic diversity in their marketing.  In Europe, however, 23% do so.

In addition, Canadian tourism boards stood out for their representation of Indigenous Peoples at 71%, according to the report.

When it comes to reaching travelers with disabilities, over 40% of American and European tourism boards put it as a top priority in their marketing. About 12% of Canadian tourism boards, on the other hand, do so.

Below are updates based on comments from Sojern. The headline was also updated.

• The survey’s original question was, “How are the following prioritized in your strategy?” U.S. tourism boards still prioritize climate change and net zero gas emissions commitments but not above other focuses like biodiversity and natural environment, diversity, equity and inclusion, and so on.
• The question above was intended to gauge how tourism boards are focused on sustainability overall, not just climate change.
• Europe has government policies on sustainability that the U.S. does not. That will explain some regional differences.
• Tourism board priorities are set by their funding partners. In certain destinations, climate change will logically be less of a priority than other aspects of sustainability.

Visit Sweden launched a new marketing campaign to remind the world to stop mixing up Sweden with Switzerland, the tourism board announced on Tuesday.

Called “Welcome to Sweden (not Switzerland),” the campaign kicked off with a playful message to Swiss public officials. In the video, Sweden proposes what the countries should promote to better differentiate themselves to end the confusion. Sweden, for example, proposes Switzerland talks about its financial banks while they talk about their sandbanks.

The campaign video includes a joke about U.S. President Joe Biden accidentally stating in 2022 that Switzerland was joining NATO instead of Sweden. Last year, 85,000 Google searches originating from the U.S. asked, “Are Sweden and Switzerland the same?” according to MyTelescope.

Many people can’t differentiate Sweden and Switzerland. About 50% of Americans can’t confidently tell the differences in Swedish and Swiss culture, according to a study commissioned by Visit Sweden.

The campaign also includes a dedicated webpage with key points on how Sweden’s different from Switzerland and a FAQ. “If people struggle to separate our two countries, we need to help them. We can’t change the names of our nations, but we can become more distinct,” said Visit Sweden CEO Susanne Andersson.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority plans to move forward with its plans to award an expensive contract to market Hawaii to the U.S. mainland, despite not being allocated funding from the legislature for the next two years. The decision was made at a board meeting Tuesday, according to Honolulu Star Advertiser (paywall). The contract is worth up to $51.3 million.

The other contracts the agency plans to move forward with are one for destination management, which is worth $34 million, and another for marketing to Canada, which is worth $2.8 million. All contract winners will be selected on May 22nd. Each contract spans at least two years. 

When it comes to funding, the agency has a rough road ahead. Last week, it was left out of the official state budget at the end of the legislative session. It will get funds from money set aside by lawmakers for deferred maintenance projects. Requests for funds will have to be approved by the governor and lawmakers.

The contracting process for the U.S. market has been far from smooth. It’s been delayed by legal disputes, canceled by an outgoing public official and forced to restart.

A major point of contention was the award of the contract to a native community non-profit over Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, which has historically won the U.S. marketing contract. Another was that it was combined with destination management under one contract.  These moves are part of the agency’s attempts to take a more sustainable approach to tourism that takes resident needs and interest more into account.

The failure to award the contract was one of the reasons lawmakers almost dissolved the agency in the recent legislative session.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority put two contracts up to bid, one for marketing to the U.S. and the other for destination management, on February 14.  The two contracts are essentially a split of the previous one that included both responsibilities and had been awarded to a community non-profit. A government official canceled the it minutes before his term ended on December 5.

The island’s tourism agency is redoing a procurement process that originally represented its shift toward a “local-first” approach. In June, the agency awarded the previous contract (worth $34 million) to Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement over Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB), which currently markets the island to the U.S. and has done so for over decades with strong support from the traditional tourism industry. The bureau stalled the original contract’s start date through legal protests.

Under the procurement process reset, there’s now a scenario where the convention bureau may end up winning the U.S. marketing contract. The contract would start on June 1, 2023 and end on December 31, 2025.

The Hawaiian government this week rescinded the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s U.S. tourism contract with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, a community non-profit, providing a potential setback for the authority’s sustainable tourism efforts. The reason for the government’s rescission was that the contract needed to be separated into two, one for marketing and the other for visitor management and community relations.

The move is the latest roadblock to the Hawaii Tourism Authority’s attempts toward bringing a more sustainable approach to Hawaii, where communities have been frustrated by and more vocal about tourism’s negative impacts on their quality of life and ecosystem. The situation was an industry example of the 2022 Skift megatrend that communities are asserting themselves in travel.

Former Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism (DBEDT) Director Mike McCartney made the decision minutes before his term ended at noon on Monday. The Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) sits under the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism.

In a letter, McCartney said there needs to be one contract for marketing and another for destination brand management, communication, education, and community-based economic development. “A single contract would not only put us at a competitive disadvantage in the market but also in dealing with the community,” the former director wrote.

In June, the Hawaii Tourism Authority awarded Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA) the $34 million dollar contract to market the islands to the U.S. until December 2024. It was a historic shift because HTA didn’t go with its historic partner,  Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau (HVCB), which has marketed Hawaii for over a century with strong support from the traditional tourism industry. 

The contract award also represented a significant step toward HTA implementing a “locals-first” approach. The authority wants to attract a more high-spending but mindful visitor, one that will embrace Hawaii’s cultural heritage and be respectful of sacred sites and the natural environment. 

Since the June contract award, HTA has repeatedly extended its current contract with the HVCB due to protests by the bureau. Its most recent extension was up to March 31, 2023.

With the June contracted canceled, HVCB could very well end up oversee marketing to the U.S. for the next few years. In a statement, CNHA CEO Kūhiō Lewis called McCartney’s recession “unlawful” and said his organization will protest it.

HTA President and CEO John De Fries said the organization is willing to work on a settlement with all the parties involved or start a new procurement process, according to Hawaii News Now.

Either way, the Hawaii Tourism Authority will have to get to work, starting with an upcoming emergency meeting. “My staff and I look forward to discussing this rescission and cancellation at our board meeting on Wednesday and we will work with our board, new DBEDT Director Chris Sadayasu, the State Procurement Office, and Governor Josh Green to explore viable options and align our direction going forward,” said De Fries.

Visit Iceland launched a new campaign to attract space tourists on Tuesday. Called “Mission Iceland,” the campaign kicked off on November 16 with the launch of a billboard into space with the message: “Iceland. Better than Space.”

The campaign targets the space tourist segment and encourages them to see Iceland an alternative destination to travel. Visit Iceland didn’t name any companies, but it cited the ongoing delays for space travel. Virgin Galactic announced in August that it had to delay its first space tourist mission trip to the second quarter of 2023 due to needed ship enhancements.

“We know there is likely frustration amongst aspiring space travelers who have had their trips delayed and don’t yet know when they will make it to outer space,” said Visit Iceland Head Sigríður Dögg Guðmundsdóttir. “That is why we are encouraging them to take a trip much closer to home instead and for a fraction of the price, and the carbon footprint.”

As more hotels strive to optimize costs, improve return on investment and reduce cost of customer acquisition by generating direct revenue through metasearch platforms, travel technology firm RateGain continues to see considerable demand for its metasearch and digital marketing offerings, Bhanu Chopra, RateGain’s founder and chairman, said.

“We continue to see little or no impact on the overall travel industry as well as our business due to the ongoing increase in inflation, talk about rising interest rates or the ongoing Ukraine conflict,” Chopra said.

Marketing technology has emerged as the biggest vertical for RateGain, with a recurring revenue of 99 percent contributing 41 percent of the company’s overall revenue for the quarter ending June 30, 2022.

Continuing on its path of fiscal prudence, Chopra said RateGain, which made its debut in the stock market in India last year, continues to be one of the very few profitable software-as-a-service companies globally.

“We stay committed to improving profitability through cost optimization and revisiting our commercial agreements to increase revenue per customer,” Chopra said during the earnings call.

The company registered a 59 percent year-on-year revenue growth with revenue from operations reaching $15 million compared to $9 million in the corresponding quarter last year.

“We see robust growth and our annual recurring revenue is now 20 percent higher than pre-Covid levels and is 10 percent higher level compared to the last quarter,” Chopra said.

Given the labor shortages in the travel industry, there has been an acceleration towards digitization and RateGain is well positioned to capture this opportunity, according to Chopra.

“Using artificial intelligence and machine learning we are innovating and launching new products to help our customers acquire guests, retain them and expand on their wallet share,” he said.

Citing Skift Travel Health Index, Chopra said there has been continued improvement in travel demand across the world with more countries now reporting numbers at pre-Covid levels or higher.

Given the return of travel, the company’s transactional volume is up by close to 40 percent. The bundling of data-as-a-service products with marketing technology businesses has resonated very well for the company.

The data-as-a-service business unit grew on the pack of strong volumes of its online travel agency and airline products driven by existing Tier 1 accounts and new accounts, Chopra said. “Also, we entered adjacent sub-verticals within travel such as destination management companies and vacation rental companies and signed up for a set of customers.”

RateGain has also said that it would be investing in launching new products and test piloting them this quarter.