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Speech by John Marks, President and CEO of the San Francisco
CVB and 2003 National Chair of the Travel Industry Association
of America, at the State of the Travel Industry Luncheon
on January 14, 2003
Washington, DC January 14, 2003

Thank you Bill. Each of us has a partnership with TIA that in most cases spans years or even decades. This organization has always served us well. But it has never served us better than in late 2001 and throughout 2002.

Delivering the annual State of the Travel Industry address during this luncheon is among my first official duties as the national chair. I want to look ahead to the year that is unfolding and beyond. I can do that in part because Bill Norman has ably highlighted the past year. 

But also, reflecting on what we�ve been through, a remark by Winston Churchill comes to mind: �When you�re going through hell, keep going!�

What I am going to talk about transcends programs and services. It goes beyond this organization or any of the individual organizations represented in this room. I am going to talk about our collective future. And I�m going to challenge each of you to consider your role this year and in the years ahead.

I have two points that I intend to make this afternoon. The first is that the era of partnerships has really just begun. At a time of scant resources we all gain when we work together. 

My second point is related to the first. We stand here today more unified by the events of the recent past than at any time in our history. 

Let�s invest our unity in building a great future. How often do you get an opportunity to transform a setback into an advantage? 

The travel industry recognized that there was great potential in partnerships long before September 11th. Many local convention & visitors bureaus banded together to form stronger regional promotional entities. Companies, some of them rivals, formed alliances of various kinds. In virtually all cases these partnerships made the participants stronger. 

What was successful in good times has become a necessity today. None of us has the resources to do what we want to do alone. Partnerships allow us to pool our resources and meet our needs. 

I made a reference in my opening line to our partnership with TIA. In turn, TIA continues to actively seek out partnerships from which all of us can benefit. I�m going to outline a few of those to give you a glimpse of where we�re going. 

Bill cited a couple of recent partnerships between the travel industry and federal government agencies. 

The air travel survey, perhaps the most thorough measurement of consumer attitudes toward air travel, is a product of one such partnership. The federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics sponsored the survey. 

Research, by the way, is the foundation upon which all else is built. This year TIA will again provide the yardstick for the size and scope of our industry. And it will provide a host of marketing and other invaluable reports that aren�t available anywhere else. Much of this material will be created through a partnership at one level or another. 

Bill also cited SeeAmerica�s Byways. At a time when travel by car is increasing, what better promotional vehicle than this one, a partnership with the federal Department of Transportation? 

These alliances have benefited us tremendously. We have teamed up with only a few of the 15 departments and 84 independent agencies within the federal government. The future here holds much promise for low-cost, high exposure opportunities, but partnering with the federal government is only one ingredient in our recipe for success. 

The SeeAmerica national brand and website may be the broadest partnership in travel industry history. The states have proven the value of a single brand that ties together all of their competing destinations. They realized years ago that every travel industry organization within a state can benefit when they market themselves under a single state banner. 

SeeAmerica borrows on that success and continues to rise meteorically. I foresee a day when SeeAmerica is the universally recognized symbol of the best tourism product anywhere. 

While I�m talking about SeeAmerica, let me make a prediction. Many originally considered SeeAmerica to be exclusively a tool to promote international inbound travel. But by the end of this year we�ll have proven that it supports domestic travel equally as well. 

In fact, SeeAmerica is eminently adaptable to the current realities of international inbound travel, which we expect to remain down for the foreseeable future. That concerns me. And it should concern all of us because TIA research shows us that international visitors stay longer and spend more. 

We�ll work doubly hard to encourage international travelers to return. But we�ve also seized on the opportunity to continue to develop the domestic marketing potential for SeeAmerica. You will see the brand more this year on domestic promotions. 

And internationally, this is an opportunity to focus closer to home as well. Our neighbors next door in Canada remain our biggest international inbound market. And for many U.S.  destinations, Canada is a drive market. So this year you�ll see cooperative SeeAmerica advertising in Canada. 

Just as the states have used their state-wide brands in different and creative ways, I see the SeeAmerica brand increasingly used coast-to-coast. I can only hint at the brand�s potential based on how it�s been used to date. But looking at the success of similar brands in the states, the sky is the limit as to what SeeAmerica can do for each of us. 

More important than the details is the principle. If you have only one-thousand dollars to spend, you are severely constrained in where you can advertise and what you can do. But if you and nine other partners, who also have only one-thousand dollars, pool your money and share the benefits, a range of bigger, better possibilities opens up to each of you.  That�s the premise under which SeeAmerica has been built. Multiply the ten organizations in my illustration by hundreds or even thousands and perhaps you can see the power in what we�re doing. 

I cite TIA�s partnership initiatives because I have been so deeply involved with them as Chairman of TIA's SeeAmerica Marketing Committee this past year. And I support them.  But my message is broader than that. I think TIA sets a good example. 

What untapped partnership opportunities are before you? Who among the complimentary organizations in your sphere could help you attain your goals? Who within your vertical segment of the industry might find a mutually beneficial partnership with you? And how can we seek non-endemic partners to reach new audiences as we have done in San Francisco with candy, wine and even olive oil companies? 

I would like to press this point a little further and say that in this current environment, few of us can make a go of it without partners. And it�s even more critical as we attempt to fill the void left by the elusive business travel segment that continues to suffer greatly. 

Right now corporate America seems to be creating share-holder value through cost containment rather than through investment in new products and services. The U.S. travel and tourism industry is one of the first affected by these actions. We need to be more aggressive than that. We can�t continue to cut our way to profitability. 

So, regardless of the market segment, I believe the era of partnerships is here to stay.  This is a phenomenon that can do so much to build each of our organizations that it will keep growing even after the economy improves. 

Let me now move on to my second point, which as I said earlier, is related to the growing web of travel industry partnerships. 

The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote: 

All your strength is in your union All your danger is in discord� 

As you look around this room, you see your colleagues. You see your competitors.  Virtually all segments of the travel industry are represented here. And for 62 years TIA has successfully brought together a broad and growing industry. 

And this is only one of several high-profile venues where the travel industry has come together. 

The Marketing Outlook Forum, last October in Hollywood, Florida, marked its 28th anniversary. The Forum documents the global economic, social, marketing, and political trends that will affect travel in the years ahead. A year earlier, the Forum served as the rallying point for the travel industry just weeks after September 11th. 

TIA�s Educational Seminar for Tourism Organizations, ESTO, is the premier learning and information exchange for U.S. tourism destination marketing professionals. The 2003 edition will mark 20 years of bringing state tourism directors and convention and visitor bureau chiefs together. 

Another important group, attraction professionals, will gather during the National Conference of Attraction Professionals in April. This annual meeting is young but strong.  Most importantly, like its well-respected peers, Outlook Forum and ESTO, N-CAP actively promotes industry unity. 

These conferences and countless other activities laid a ground work so that when disaster struck on September 11th, there was a structure that could carry us through. In the near term, the greatest danger we face should serve to keep us together. That of course is the looming war with Iraq.

Recent polls show that about 70 percent of Americans believe that war in Iraq is inevitable. None of us wishes for war. In the travel industry, further international turmoil will generate greater economic uncertainty. We know from the Gulf War in 1991 that open hostilities will probably cause another immediate drop in air travel. And domestic travel could go flat for the rest of the year. To further complicate the equation, no one really knows how the new terrorism threat might compound a war-related downturn. 

We can hope that a conflict will eventually ease world tensions and allow us to go about our business as we did throughout the 1990s. I believe you cannot have prosperity without hope. But I also believe you will not have prosperity unless you also prepare for the worst. 

We must be prepared to act quickly and forcefully. TIA is completing work on a war response plan. We�re using our September 11th response as a template. It will be essential for the travel industry to speak with one voice as we have in the past. We�ll have an industry message created by a broad group of travel industry communicators from many of your organizations. And we�ll have a plan to get that message out, leveraging CEOs and industry communications staffs nation-wide. 

If required, I have complete confidence that we will again rally to this cause as we did a little over a year ago. And I have no doubt that we�ll be able to provide accurate information and drive public opinion. Perhaps you feel as I do that we�re becoming all too familiar with crisis communications. But on the bright side, we�re more experienced and wiser now than we were just a short time ago. 

In the near term our unity should continue to grow. That�s usually the case when we face a common threat. The real danger that threatens our unity comes farther in the future.  After we have overcome terrorism, war and a soft economy, it�s entirely possible we could do the unthinkable: take our unprecedented unity for granted. 

I said in my opening remarks that our industry-wide solidarity is something we must invest for the future. When you work hard to create something, you don�t just walk away from it. It could be a new market that will significantly boost your organization�s earnings.  Or your life�s savings for retirement. You hold it tight. You manage it. You nurture it so it will grow for you. That�s how we should view the accord we have created across our great industry. 

When we spoke with one voice in the fall of 2001 we motivated Americans to keep traveling. When we came together to promote travel in so many unique and creative ways in 2002, we gave our customers the means to act on that motivation. This should be the foundation for a greater travel industry than exists today. 

Bill Norman so often says that the travel industry is one of the engines driving the nation�s economy within the powerful service sector. I believe that the travel industry can and should be the service sector�s brightest star. But we�ll only get there by working in concert�in the long term. 

One of the greatest challenges we have faced in recent decades is our limited clout here in Washington. Each of us probably has a list of what�s gone wrong when we�ve come here to ask for something. 

The stakes are especially high this year. Congress and the Administration draft major highway spending legislation only once every five years. Highway reauthorization must be acted on by the end of September. I don�t have to tell you how important this legislation is.  Three-quarters of our customers nationwide arrive at their destinations by car, truck or recreational vehicle. 

To those lists of what�s gone wrong for us in Washington in the past, I will add that we have not often come here speaking with one voice and focused on one purpose. We have an opportunity now to change that. We can all agree on the importance of substantial, nationwide highway funding. Let�s get behind this effort like never before. 

There are other opportunities for us to apply our unity. The partnerships we�ve exercised with federal agencies are a great pretext for where I believe the travel industry should go next. For most of the last decade, we have sought a broader partnership with the federal government. Everyone in this room agrees that the U.S. is the greatest travel destination within and outside our borders. But it�s also true that we haven�t been able to promote ourselves as an industry. 

We have taken advantage of the opportunities at International Pow Wow, the greatest international travel marketplace in the U.S. It has grown substantially over the years.  International Pow Wow will continue to build its value to the travel industry. 

The ultimate answer can be drawn from many of our competitors overseas whose governments spend up to $100 million annually to promote their industry. They have held their own in a growing world travel market while the U.S. share of international travel has declined 30 percent. 

There's a message here. Investing in marketing works! They have gained market share for a reason. We need to learn from their experience in order to guarantee our own future. 

Some states, such as California and Florida have boldly stepped forward and set up their own public-private tourism marketing organizations. And both have reaped significant benefits when government funds leverage a vast pool of industry resources. 

Bill mentioned in my introduction that I played a role in the creation of the California Travel and Tourism Commission. I can tell you that it wasn�t easy to work through the legislative process and make that organization a reality. 

But I can also tell you that California�s travel industry leveraged $7.3 million in state funding to get $20 million in coop funds from the private sector. 

California spent $2.7 million on tourism advertising that generated new visitors who contributed $619 million to the state�s economy in 1999 and 2000. 

And I can also tell you that this concept that has worked so well in California and Florida would also work for our nation. 

But there�s no way we can go to Capitol Hill or to the Administration and ask for their support unless we are united on the value of this idea. 

When we speak with one voice we speak for the one in every seven Americans who work directly or indirectly for our industry. When we speak with one voice, we flex the muscle of the nation�s third largest retail sales industry. And when we speak with one voice, we maximize the power of the nearly $100 billion we contribute to federal, state and local tax coffers annually. 

I want federal lawmakers and the administration to take us seriously. I want them to acknowledge the economic, cultural and social contributions our industry makes to this nation every single day. 

I want them to understand that an investment in travel and tourism is the best investment they could make for the future well-being of our country. Travel and tourism is not a consumer of revenues but rather a provider. And I want them to recognize that travel and tourism is the greatest long term guarantor of peace for our nation and the world. But none of that will happen unless we can present a focused agenda and be unified in our support of what�s best for travel and tourism and our nation. 

As I close I would like to mention that TIA hosts a Travel and Tourism Industry Unity Dinner each March. It has served well to bind us together over the past 20 years. But I hope that this year�s edition will do more. I hope that it will be the beginning of focused, determined efforts to work collectively toward a stronger, more prosperous travel industry.  It should drive us to speak loudly in Washington on highway funding, the public-private marketing partnership and other issues�to speak confidently about our role in the national debate. And more than anything else, I hope that this year�s Unity Dinner will show us to be an indivisible industry marching forward to take its place as one of the most powerful forces in this society. 

Thank you.

Contact:
Cathy Keefe 
202-408-2183 
[email protected]
www.tia.org

Also See John A. Marks, President and CEO of the San Francisco CVB, Elected National Chair of the Travel Industry Association of America / Nov 2002
Jonathan M. Tisch, Chairman & CEO of Loews Hotels, Chosen the 2002 Inductee to the Travel Industry
Hall of Leaders / Aug 2002


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