DISNEY TO PRODUCE ATTRACTION COMPONENTS IN GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA

The Glendale City Council approved The Walt Disney Company's plan to build a 56,000-square-foot (5,203-square-meter) machine shop for the construction of theme park attraction components. It will be part of the company's 125-acre (51-hectare) Glendale campus, which also includes an office building, child-care center, and other facilities. Read More...

Since the Happy Hollow Park and Zoo in San Jose completed a $72-million renovation in March, it's attracted a new set of visitors besides all those tykes and toddlers in high-tops and jeans. 

Because of the renovation, the zoo was awarded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certificate - the first in the nation for a zoo or amusement park - by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council.

Kids who crowd Happy Hollow to see pygmy goats and ring-tailed lemurs must share the zoo with tree-hugging environmentalists who show up to check out the latest in green building designs.

"We have tapped into a new audience," said Shannon Heimer, the zoo's education manager.

Frisky capuchin monkeys and sleek jaguars are enough to draw me to any zoo, but I was interested to see what it took to win Happy Hollow a top distinction from the nation's leading environmental design panel.

Visitors interested in the Gold award-winning features can take a self-guided tour of the "green" improvements. For larger groups, the zoo's education department will lead personalized tours if requested in advance. Read More.. 

The design for the building was inspired by the original Carthay Circle Theatre, a Los Angeles-area landmark where Walt Disney's "Silly Symphony" cartoons and "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" debuted. It will be a focal point at the entrance to the park. Although it will not house a theater, it will hold a new restaurant and lounge. The name, menu, and interior design are still in development. The new restaurant and entrance area are part of a $1 billion expansion project at the Anaheim theme park. Read More...

PHILADELPHIA EXPANDS TOURISM CAMPAIGN

Marketing Daily reports the City of Brotherly Love is hoping to boost tourism this year with an ad effort supported by some big out-of-home media buys this winter.   

The effort, "With Love, Philadelphia XOXO," via by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation, also includes a consumer-engagement program to get people to come up with text for billboard advertising. The campaign launches this week with dominations in New York City and Washington, D.C., train stations, and with advertising on the CNN Airport Network.

A 30-second TV spot is running for 12 weeks in airports in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. The marketing organization says it is the first advertiser to select individual airports through the CNN airport network. The spot will also play in 5,500 New York City taxicabs from Feb. 28 through March 30.

In addition, New York City's ABC affiliate will run a half-hour special called "Destination Philadelphia" on March 12 and 13, making Philadelphia the first U.S. destination to do such a program. The special will be paired with print ads in magazines and newspapers, on billboards, in transit stations and online.

The tourism agency will take over New York's Pennsylvania Station, which gets some six million commuters a month -- with "With Love, Philadelphia"-themed ads to run simultaneously on 225 Amtrak-level advertising displays, including posters, column wraps, banners, kiosk dioramas and a stair riser. Washington, D.C.'s Union Station will get the same treatment in March. The campaign will include onboard posters on Amtrak and Acela trains and advertorials in Arrive magazine.

The agency is also doing joint marketing efforts with Philadelphia destinations like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Constitution Center, and the month-long Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts this spring.

Philadelphia's tourism organization is also getting behind Philly's National Hockey League team, the Flyers. Cara Schneider, an agency spokesperson, says the effort is aimed at a major tourism feeder market for the city: Toronto. Read More... 

HOTELS RATES TO START RISING IN 2011

Consumers contemplating a getaway may want to book a hotel room sooner rather than later, as room rates are set to rise this year. Substantial increases of $10 or more are at least another year or two away, but the lodging industry plans to take advantage of improving market conditions.

Several leading hotel operators including Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide and Starwood Hotels and Resorts are incrementally upping average daily rates in light of the return of leisure and business travel, and the relatively fixed supply of rooms given the lack of new construction reports The Washington Post.

"We continue to see strength in pricing," Arne Sorenson, president and chief operating officer of Bethesda-based Marriott, said at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit here last week.

Marriott, which operates more than 3,000 hotels in 68 countries, got a jump on its competitors by selectively raising rates last year, before any meaningful pickup in travel. The gamble paid off as rooms began to fill in the summer. Read More... 

Almost every night, stranded travelers can be found sleeping inside the terminals of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

"This is the new reality," said James Crites, DFW's executive vice president for operations. "You're becoming a hotel."

These days, airlines are canceling flights more readily due to bad weather and other disruptions. Rebooking is tricker than ever-as many discovered during the recent snowstorms in the South and Northeast-because airlines have reduced their schedules and are running at capacity. As a result, passengers should prepare for the dreaded airport sleepover.

Now, however, airports are doing more when they become the hotel of last resort reports The Wall Street Journal. Many provide meal vouchers and set up discounted hotel rates for travelers, for example. Some write requirements in leases that restaurants will remain open 24 hours a day when passengers are stranded. Massachusetts Port Authority, which oversees Boston's Logan Airport, has an arrangement with flight kitchens to cook up lots of meals for stranded passengers if the terminal restaurants run out of food or can't stay open. Newsstand vendors at Boston Logan are also required to stock baby formula and diapers for stranded families.

At many airports, paramedics are on call for medical care; parking-lot buses are deployed to move people between terminals or to hotels. Among the amenities big airports now routinely stock: cots, blankets, diapers, baby formula, eye masks, prepaid phone cards, ear plugs, deodorant and shampoo. For the second big snowstorm in New York this winter, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey started handing out free WiFi cards to stranded customers at New York City's three major airports so travelers could check their flight status online at airline websites.

But perchance to sleep? At New York's LaGuardia Airport, people stranded in the US Airways and Delta terminals are invited to ride buses to the central terminal, where a sleeping area is set up with cots and security guards. DFW establishes quiet zones for cots where music and paging announcements are muted and lights are dimmed.

And when ash clouds shut down European skies last spring, the Port Authority bused Newark stranded passengers to showers in "snow dorms" built for plow drivers and trucked in portable showers for passengers marooned at Kennedy International Airport.

"It's not the same as staying at the Waldorf. But people were so grateful after three or four days of washing in a bathroom sink," said Susan Baer, Port Authority aviation director.

The overnight-guest trend is raising larger questions of airport design and overnight security staffing.

Celebrity Cruises is launching a multi-channel campaign with the theme "X the rules."

While all cruise lines claim to offer beautiful accommodations, great dining experiences, and excellent service, Celebrity's point of distinction is offering a "better, different and special vacation experience" including "trendsetting onboard experiences."

While most vacation providers offer Internet cafes, Miami-based Celebrity offers the "Celebrity iLounge," complete with the opportunity to experiment with the latest Apple technologies and become immersed in new applications through "iLearn" courses. Many cruise lines offer enrichment programs, but only Celebrity offers vacationers the chance to learn a new language through Rosetta Stone, become immersed in the culture of the destinations with experts from Smithsonian Journeys, or taste the difference a glass makes in comparative wine tastings with Riedel Crystal.

The cruise line is leveraging its longtime icon -- the Celebrity "X" -- to communicate that the "X" is the mark of an unmatchable vacation experience, said Celebrity's Vice President of Marketing Lisa Kauffman in a release.

The signature "X" displayed on the funnel of Celebrity ships is the Greek letter chi, because "Chandris" Celebrity Cruises was founded in April 1988 as a subsidiary of the Greece-based Chandris Group. The "X" also appears as part of the company's logo, in between the words "Celebrity" and "Cruises," says Marketing Daily. Read More... 

INTERNET OVERTAKES WORD OF MOUTH FOR BIZ TRAVEL

Google says two-thirds of businesses now plan their travel using search engines, with smart phone bookings rising 69 percent just last year.  Nate Bucholz of Google told reporters at a conference that the internet has overtaken word of mouth as the primary medium for businesses choosing destinations.   

He added that 69 percent of businesses -- compared to 63 percent of consumers -- plan travel by searching the internet, visiting an average of 22 sites before deciding on a destination.

Meanwhile, mobile travel bookings accounted for 15 percent of all reservations last year, up 69 percent from 2009, when around nine per cent used the medium, says Corporate & Incentive Travel. Read More... 

Travellers remain most influenced by travel web sites and traditional media like television, rather than social media sites like Facebook.     

"The research, by Conrad Advertising, a UK company, found that while UK social media sites may be extremely popular, they are still some way from being considered the best source of holiday recommendations," says Travolution.    

Instead, consumers turn to time-tested sources of information like travel company web sites and travel review sites. These are seen as both the first and best sources when looking for travel advice, concludes the survey.Conrad said the finding that television, newspapers and travel websites are still the most important media does not mean companies should discount social media, but it should not be the dominant force in a campaign. The study also found age was not the major issue in who uses the internet, which is commonly assumed to be younger users more comfortable with technology.A majority of users also said they preferred online bookings because they could compare prices.

Hoteliers, B&B owners and innkeepers are embracing online engagement with consumers to attract travelers this year, according to a TripAdvisor survey.More than half, of 57 percent expect their social media marketing budgets to increase this year over last.    

Other trends cited by hospitality providers in TripAdvisor's first survey of 1000 accommodation people: 

• Almost one-third of survey respondents plan to launch programs, for the first time in 2011, to engage with travelers using mobile devices.
• Another 27 percent indicated that they had offered such programs last year and will continue to do so this year.
• 46 percent have no plans to offer programs to engage travelers using mobile devices in 2011.   

Other more traditional plans for owners to attract guests include: 

• Discounts on rooms - 61 percent.
• Special amenities - 36 percent.
• Rewards points - 29 percent.
• Deals on nearby attractions - 23 percent.
• Free night's stay with booking - 16 percent.     

Marketing Guru Seth Godin checks in this month with the following observation:

Relentlessly smaller

Some people work overtime to make their jobs smaller.

If your job is smaller you're less likely to make a mistake and more likely to please your boss.

But that's a pretty dumb bargain. You're exchanging your upside, energy, opportunity, growth and excitement for the freedom from thinking and a decrease in self-induced anxiety.

What a shame. Read More...