Hotel & Tourism SMARTreport #32

AMERICAS & CARIBBEAN INBOUND
TRENDING DESTINATIONS
Chris Ellis
Director, Global Trade Development,
Brand USA
USA
BEYOND THE GATEWAYS
Exclusive Interview - Chris Ellis - Director,
Global Trade Development at Brand USA
Moving to Brand USA in September 2016, Chris Ellis, the new Director of Global Trade Development
for the American DMO may speak with a British accent, but has a very broad background in the
business. Indeed, over the past 16 years, he has worked for Universal Orlando, Kennedy Space
Center, and until just a few months ago, Visit Orlando, where he was Senior Manager of Travel
Industry Sales. We asked Chris what Brand USA’s main focus is for the coming months.
We are concentrating even more
on promoting the proximity of U.S.
travel destinations through our
new digital campaign “All Within
Your Reach”. The campaign helps
travelers understand exactly how
many unique destinations and
attractions they can experience
with even on visit to a gateway
city. Everyone flies into New York
and does Manhattan or flies into
LA and does Hollywood. What we
are saying is “Continue to do that
but branch out a bit more”.
For example, fly into Washington
DC, see all the sights there are
to see there, but then maybe
look into Virginia, and look at
the vineyards or micro-breweries
there. It’s all within a five-hour
drive of the gateway. We have
a trip-kit that suggests a lot of
places people may not have
thought about. But we are even
taking that a step further, because
if you can imagine a smaller hotel
in one of these places that has
never done any international
business at all, we will educate
the hotelier how to do business,
and introduce concepts like
voucher systems, room blocks,
pre-bought allocations, black-out
periods, what to expect when you
are working with an international
tour operator or travel agent.
What are the prospects with
Europe at the moment since
the rise of the dollar?
We are obviously watching Europe
at the moment with Brexit, and
it’s true the US Dollar is very, very
strong. One of the challenges we
have is explaining to people that
while it may appear at the outset
to be more expensive than before,
when you are in the US, it’s still
excellent value when it comes to
eating, sightseeing and shopping.
That’s the message we are trying
to get across.
How is travel agent training
progressing?
We have an online travel agent
training module that does various
destinations and regions. Teams at
our offices in the UK and Germany
are very much into training. Our
major objective is Fam Trips. If you
can get agents to experience how
much there is to see and do in
the USA, and they feel confident,
then they will sell it •
WE HAVE A
TRIP-KIT THAT
SUGGESTS A
LOT OF PLACES
PEOPLE MAY NOT
HAVE THOUGHT
ABOUT