The most e-mailed New York Times article this morning is “The 53 Places to Go in 2008.†Sounds interesting, huh! Turns out that Laos, Lisbon, and Tunisia are the top three. No surprise that Erie wasn’t on the list, in fact, only eight destinations were in the U.S., including New York itself (kind of self-serving, wouldn’t you say?). It made me wonder about how well our tourism brand is being communicated in the travel press.
Ok, so maybe sophisticated New York Times readers aren’t interested in a grilled hot dog and orange-vanilla twist soft serve at Sara’s after a bike ride at Presque Isle. Why play the slots at the Downs when Vegas is calling, baby? But what about the flyover crowd, those Post-Gazette, Plain Dealer, Vindicator or Centre County Times readers? They surely are drawn to the amazing sunsets, sandy beaches, and four-season fun available in the Flagship/Gem City!
It’s strangely nearly impossible to find much travel news about Erie on the web. By searching “erie travel†on postgazette.com, I got no hits. On vindy.com (Youngstown), a couple of forum mentions, but again no articles. Same with the Plain Dealer. Same with the Centre Daily Times (State College). Even a Google News Archive search found mostly only travel articles from our own Erie Times News. Understand that I, and most other people, do not have LEXUS/NEXUS accounts.
What gives? I thought tourism was the Erie area’s ticket to a revitalized economy. Either I was stymied by searching incorrectly for travel articles about Erie despite my dozen years of daily internet use, or there just isn’t much out there.
Since it is apparently the latter, then a call to arms to Erie freelance writers and want-to-be’s: start submitting your travel article ideas to the big (and small) city regional newspapers. It might make you a few bucks about a topic you’d hardly have to do much research about, while it just might greatly raise the profile of our tourism assets.
Anyone from VisitErie wish to set me straight on all of this?
December 10th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Here in Metro Detroit, I think Erie would do well if it advertised its “miles and miles” of sandy beaches on lake Erie and only 4 hours away. There really is no recreational beach in the area except for a few pitiful ponds (they call them lakes here) and a dirty river. The only thing in Michigan known for its sandy beaches are the sleeping bear dunes which is more than 5 hours away in the exact opposite corner of the state.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
“Erie travel” does seem just a bit lame as a search term. Most travel to Erie is for a purpose, I’d guess, and is attracted by local businesses through their own traditional methods.
The local sport-fishing industry still uses boat and sporting shows, afaik, to attract tourists to our great local fishery. That may be true of some sports diving ventures as well.
Shopping, gambling, wine industry efforts will all need more specific terms to find but they’re out there, I think.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
What I was specifically looking for was travel section newspaper stories on Erie. Couldn’t find any. Found some on Lancaster, even Scranton in the New York Times. I couldn’t even find news releases on Erie events on travel websites. Perhaps readers can submit links from out of town papers to any stories on Erie beyond the pizza bomber, $100 million foundation gift, or various weather-related events.
I don’t mind being corrected.
December 11th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
The shortest sentence in the Bible: “Jesus wept.”
The shortest sentence in this post: “What gives?”
I suspect both sentences have the same meaning since the topic is Erie and Tourism.
However, all is not bleak. The New York Times list of 53 spots to visit left me nauseous. Libya? Hello?
I think watching a tsunami would be more enjoyable than a Quadaffi (sic?, dunno)moment at your expense.
When searching, the key question to ask is “What are we really searching for?”. Try: vacation in erie pa
No capitals, no punctuation, nothing fancy….just the facts ma’am. Yahoo piles it on. Sort out the fact from the fiction, but you WILL find Erie via vacation instead of tourism.
More packages are needed (see Yahoo Deals).
Sadly, Romantic vacation is taken by Sandusky instead of us. We need Romance here.
Here is how I would package Erie, PA if I were to promote tourism around here.
Package vacation deals would be created for all directions with Erie, PA at the center. Why? We are an inexpensive place to stay (so far), with a reasonable amount of curiosity satisfiers too.
Erie is a day trip to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Niagara Falls, and in summer, by boat to Canada. All directions can be visited via package with Erie at the center of the vacation stay. You can combo any or all of the directions, OR set them up for annual vacations with a swing in any direction each year.
Stay and play here. Visit your area of choice by day and come back for the sunset, casino, eatery, tennis, whatever. We offer the best location to take in a lot of everything. We do not posess a lot of everything alone. For a national pitch, Erie is extremely inexpensive to stay and play while making the most of a quick day trip. Imagine a week that takes in all 3 of our nearby cities with a chance to catch your breath and have fun every night right here.
Include Kinzua and Cook Forest year round, and the Peak. There are industries like Corning Glass that open to tourists. Perhaps a few of our industries would join that venue and open the doors for tours too.
The package can be 2 weeks or one, or even a weekend of 4 days. Erie alone is not enough to draw the crowd. Erie as the place to be to see everything around is an easy sell.
Oh, a Choo Choo ride someday to all 3 spots would be nice since we have the locomotives nearby. Hello?
Sell it!