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Travel trends and sentiment findings
North Dakota Tourism held an Industry Chat on Dec. 13 where we reported on travel and tourism trends to date. According to Arrivalist data compared to 2019, North Dakota has had a 31.9% increase in trips despite coronavirus hesitation.
In Destination Analysts’ Travel Marketing Sentiment Index, nationwide the impact of the Omicron variant is apparent, although the declines have not dipped to the lows of the Delta-variant period. According to the findings after a two-month period of recovery, the coronavirus has struck back slightly on travel sentiment and behaviors. American travelers’ expected number of overnight trips in the next 3 months has fallen from 2.7 to 2.0 since Nov. 26. However, despite these declines, 30% of American travelers are still heading out for Christmas Holiday trips.
In other trends for travel marketers to note, over 60% of American travelers feel that it is “important” or “very important” for a destination to have a Visitor Information Center and another 48.9% report that they are likely to use this resource in the next 12 months.
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Advertise on NDtourism.com today!
Participate in NDtourism.com campaigns by tapping into this audience of engaged website visitors, ensuring your business is top of mind when travelers plan their next vacation, and earn a free email promotion! Received by 40,000 opt-in subscribers, the monthly North Dakota Tourism Emails reach the highest engaged travelers who are actively planning their visit to North Dakota. Hurry, the free email promotion ends Dec. 17!
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2022 North Dakota Travel Industry Conference
The conference supports the state's tourism industry by bringing continuing education, renown speakers, trainers, best practices, and peer-to-peer networking in a three-day conference format. This is the must-attend conference for communities looking to develop their tourism infrastructure and for marketers and tourism professionals in North Dakota's travel and tourism industry. Sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities are available. Don’t forget to nominate passionate and dedicated people, organizations and communities that create valued destinations across North Dakota for the Governor’s Awards for Travel and Tourism. The conference takes place April 25-27 at the Alerus Center in Grand Forks.
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Marketing tips at the next ND Social Network Meet up
The next ND Social Network meet up will be Dec. 21 with Luke Schaefer, creater and founder of ND Country Fest. Luke has a long history in marketing promotions and will be sharing creative and easy event promotion tips. This young festival is the fastest growing country music and camping festival in the nation. Their social channels generate hundreds of thousands of impressions and engagements each month generating excitement around the festival and supporting North Dakota’s communities. Following will be an open discussion on 2021 successes and trends leading into 2022. Time to be determined! If you’re interested in joining the ND Social Network email Alicia.
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Brand USA one-to-one business meetings: Asia & The Pacific
North Dakota Tourism Global Marketing Manager, Fred Walker of North Dakota Tourism had the opportunity to highlight North Dakota with Travel Trade in one-to-one virtual meetings. Each destination was allowed 13-minute presentations with each company. North Dakota met with four companies from Australia, three from New Zealand, four from India, and seven from Japan. These travel operators, referred to as Trade, were extremely interested in North Dakota as a destination since we check many of the boxes worldwide travelers are looking for right now, including wide-open spaces, beautiful scenery, uncrowded destinations, watchable wildlife, and real history and culture of the American West.
With India and Japan, almost all the companies were new to North Dakota, so the presentations focused on gateways into the area, top destinations, and events, as well as easy routes in which their first travelers to the state might take. Many of the companies were already planning tours to the region and Walker was able to expand their itineraries to possibly continue to North Dakota from other neighboring destinations.
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Burgum advocates for ND in meetings with Interior Secretary Haaland, other top officials at WGA event
On Dec. 9 Gov. Doug Burgum met with top leaders from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Federal Emergency Management Agency and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) winter meeting in California to advocate for North Dakota interests and priorities.
Burgum and Haaland discussed the importance of fixing the impassable South Unit scenic drive in Theodore Roosevelt National Park; and Burgum also covered the importance of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments to work together to fully reopen their shared border for travel, tourism and industry. Click here for the full press release.
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United States Tour Operator Association – Integrity in Tourism
North Dakota Tourism Group Travel Marketing Manager Deanne Cunningham recently attended the United States Tour Operator Association (USTOA) conference in San Diego, CA, December 7-10. Cunningham met with international and North America tour operators that are looking for product development for 2024/2025, attended panel discussions, keynote sessions, Terry Talks and networking opportunities.
The Destinations for Destinations panel discussed challenges from previous years and 2022 opportunities, trends and confidence in travel and vaccinations. Economic impact, Google Marketing and Analytics, research possibilities and travel confidence indicators were presented.
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Opportunity to participate in the new NDtourism.com Extranet (Partner Access) training
We are excited to announce that North Dakota Tourism is upgrading our partner database! This change brings new features and better performance to enhance the user experience for you, our industry partners. We want to ensure you are familiar with the new system and understand all of the product features in order to provide the most robust listings on www.NDtourism.com for potential visitors to plan their trips. During this process, no events can be added, or changes made to current listings thru Dec. 31, 2021. We apologize for any inconvenience.
We hope you’ll join us for a training webinar on the new system Jan. 4, 2022 at 1PM CT. Here's what we'll cover:
- How to sign in
- How to add business details
- How to add an event
- How to update existing records
- How to add a deal
- New business categories and options to integrate with the API feed from CRM or CMS feed
Register today - don't miss out on this important training!
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Don’t miss out on ND Tourism updates and information
In January 2022 the North Dakota Commerce and the North Dakota Tourism Industry newsletters are transitioning to one bi-monthly newsletter to avoid duplication and email overload. If you would like to keep receiving travel and tourism industry updates and information sign up for the Commerce newsletter today!
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