Beteta told the California Travel Industry Association (CalTIA) 2010 Conference in San Francisco on June 8 that overall travel to California is expected to grow at a modest rate of 3 percent this year, with more “inspired growth” of 4 percent next year.  In the near term, international arrivals will outpace the rebound in domestic visitors.  From an 8 percent decline in 2009, international travel is expected to grow to 4 percent in 2010 and 6 percent in 2011 while domestic visitors are expected to grow 3 and 4 percent respectively.  Visitor expenditures are expected to rise faster than visits to California, aided by both relative strength in overnight visitor numbers and increasing travel-related prices.

California  Tourism  Outlook At a Glance:

2010

3 % growth in visitors

Domestic + 3 %

International + 4 %

5 % growth in visitor spending

Domestic + 5 %

International + 7 %

2011

4 % additional growth in visitors

9 % additional growth in spending

Throughout the previous year, 2009, CTTC focused on achieving the best possible return on investment.  ROI is measured for each program — for example, brand advertising success is measured by incremental visitation and spending numbers.  The 2010-11 operational plan is about moving forward to recover visitors and visitor spending from the decline of the previous year.  CTTC has analyzed the current situation and is well positioned to take advantage of several opportunities that have emerged, such as advances in digital media and technology and the booming economies of certain emerging international markets.

On the international front, the playing field has shifted quite a bit.  In 2009 only Australia and South America showed growth in arrivals in California, while others such as Japan and South Korea were hit very hard.  And, while only moderate growth in GDP is expected for most major markets, both China and India are expected to grow 9.1 % in 2011.  At the same time, foreign currencies across the globe have gained purchasing power against the dollar, making the U.S. an attractive travel destination for long-haul markets.

In 2010/11, the CTTC’s Marketing Mantra will be “preserve and innovate”.  It will maintain core successes, protecting the proven foundation that has been carefully crafted over the years to drive significant economic impact/ROI, and also stimulate progress through innovation to create more meaningful and ongoing ways to connect with and engage consumers in the California brand experience.  The two key brand pillars are the California attitude, combined with the value proposition of “abundance” — that California has the most (and best) of everything, so that visitors will get more for their money from a California vacation.

The next year ushers in a new era in the rapidly changing world of media, from television watching habits (use of DVRs and on-demand) to social and digital media (the new iPad, Twitter, mobile applications).  Connecting with today’s consumers is much different from previous times.  It is critical to make a connection on an emotional level to avoid getting lost in the maze of media options.

– Lakshman Ratnapala
BATW International Consultant

Here is a somewhat hopeful sign that creators of content can actually survive and earn a dollar or two in the new publishing environment.

– Lee Foster

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Lee Foster’€™s travel app on San Francisco recently sold 957 units in a month, 5-20-10 to 6-20-10. The app is San Francisco Travel and Photo Guide (Sutro Media, $1.99) in the Apple iTunes App Store under Travel. The record sales resulted from Lee’€™s publicity efforts and from Apple choosing the app as a Staff Favorite for the front of the App Store. The app ranked for awhile between #40 and #50 in sales among all paid travels apps, of which there are now more than 11,000. Lee’s royalty on the app is 30% of the $1.99 list, or 60 cents per sale, or $574.20 for 957 sales. More of Lee’s observations on the challenges and opportunities in app sales can be seen at http://bit.ly/cD3vc6.

Some observations:

-It is possible to sell a few apps if some fortunate publicity or recommendation occurs somewhere in the mysterious world of cyberspace. What if, next month, a leading Japanese or Chinese tour agency recommends my San Francisco travel photo guide app to its iPhone-carrying customers?

-It is possible for a little guy to outsell the big brands for awhile. My San Francisco app was outselling all the individual Lonely Planet and Rick Steves apps for about three weeks. It is possible for a startup, such as Sutro Media, to capture a significant share of the market. Huge capitalization and past brand recognition in print do not necessarily translate to success in app sales.

-A relatively small number of sales can get your app into the top 50 among all paid travel apps. Roughly speaking, when I was selling 50 apps a day, my app was in the top 50 among all paid travel apps in sales. This suggests that the app sales market is still in its infancy in dollar volume. But if Steve Jobs can sell another 50 million iPhones this year, just as he sold one million iPads in 28 days, there is hope that the dollar volume in the marketplace will expand. And if Sutro Media can get a parallel platform developed to sell my app in the Android world, that would be good. The challenge of selling apps, from the publisher’s point of view, is metaphysical. Each app selling world, with Apple and Google Android as major examples, is a separate universe and requires its own software platform, which is time consuming and expensive to develop.

-It is not easy to sell apps, just as it is not easy to sell printed travel guidebooks or make placements of travel articles in the diminishing travel print magazine market. Any suggestion that app selling is a facile slam-dunk is not helpful. There will be inherent challenges. For travel guide apps, many CVBs and travel promotion organization will rush to develop free apps, which will compete. Among the paid app sellers, there will be intense competition. Yet there is substantial hope for the content creator. My app product on San Francisco has sold in 42 foreign countries, including 8 sales in Turkey, of all places. My physical printed book on San Francisco will never sell outside North America. I’m willing to bet my future on a product category (travel apps) that can be bought impulsively ($1.99) anywhere on earth by the 6.8 billion comrades with whom I share this lovely planet.

-The going royalty rate for content creators of apps is hopeful, and the market trend looks positive. Willing buyers and willing sellers will come together to determine the compensation to the parties in the selling of apps, as happens in all commerce. For my printed book on San Francisco, a good royalty rate, with Countryman Press, is 15% of net, or about $1.10 per $14.95 book sold. The going rate that I am aware of for travel apps is roughly 30% of list, or 60 cents on my $1.99 app. So, if I sell two apps, worldwide, I earn more ($1.20) than if I sell one physical book in North America only ($1.10). Which opportunity do you think will be greater? China, for example, is projected to be the #1 supplier of world travelers by 2015, with 54 million of its citizens traveling abroad.

-The trend in royalty rates for apps favors the content creator, in my opinion. A capable software provider, such as Sutro Media now in travel, is developing huge functionality to make the app experience more appealing to consumers. They are way ahead of some major brands in travel, which are merely “slurping” (note pejorative connotation) the content of past printed travel books into electronic products. Still, Sutro Media will need to keep working hard to develop functionality to maintain its revenue share. (The ballpark breakdown currently in the app-selling culture is roughly 30% to Apple, 30% to the Developer, such as Sutro, and 30% to the Content Creator/Author, with 10% to admin.) Sutro needs to worry that off-the-shelf software could allow the content creators to do the apps themselves. Maybe the Google Android system will be at the forefront of free off-the-shelf app software. As long as there are brilliant 16-year-olds focused on software creativity, any supplier of app software must sleep at night with a slight restlessness.

– Lee Foster

“Is there one? Decidedly yes. But it may not be all summer breezes, free wine and chocolate-covered strawberries. In the face of proliferating distractions, our man begins to glean that if the goal is to write more than 140 characters at a sitting, and also keep the kids in breakfast cereal, serious focus — and a good deal of risk — may be the only sure way forward. . . . “

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I recall a former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, Solomon Bandaranaike, expounding his vision of the world in an address to the United Nations in New York as one “in a period of transition”.  He said we were then between two worlds — one in the throes of death and the other struggling to be born.

Though not quite in the same league as the Bandaranaike world vision, those words seem apt to describe today’s state of tourism, international and national, both emerging from periods of conflict — economic and social — and both energetically trying to create a brighter new world.

At this half way mark of the year, 2010 promises to be a year of transformation against the backdrop of both an upturn in international tourism and overall economic indicators. Industry forecasts are for a return to growth in tourist arrivals, after the drop of 4% last year.  The World Tourism Organization (WTO) now thinks the 2010 growth will be between 3% and 4%.  The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) predicts an increase of 2.7% each year to 2012 for international travel to Asia Pacific destinations.  South Asia is forecast to grow the fastest at an average of 4.9% per annum over the next three years to 2012, followed by Southeast Asia at 4.8%

One significant aspect of the international forecasts by both WTO and PATA is that the overall growth rates for global and regional tourism will remain very much lower from historical levels for the next few years.  This in turn, heralds the need for tourism-based businesses to continue to find profits in cost containment rather than in volume growth.  PATA predicts growth to be very uneven at a number of levels, especially at the individual country of origin-to-destination levels.

INTERNATIONAL  TOURISM  FORECAST

2009                FORECAST 2010

WORLD                                                         – 4 %                + 3 %  to +  4 %

Asia – Pacific                                               – 2 %                + 5 % to  + 7 %

Middle East                                                 – 6 %                + 5 %  to  + 9 %

Americas                                                      – 5 %                + 2 %  to  + 4 %

Europe                                                          – 6 %                + 1 %  to  +  3 %

Africa                                                           + 5 %               + 4 %  to  +  7 %

________________________________________________________________

As 2010 develops into a year of transformation, analysts see several upside opportunities :

*    Business and consumer confidence has picked up.

*    Interest rates and inflation remain low.

*    A slump is generally followed by a rebound due to pent-up demand.

*     Scope for revival in source markets

– Lakshman Ratnapala
BATW International Consultant

May 2010 BATW “Pictures on the Run” Presentation Notes

Presenters: Robert Holmes, David Sanger and Glenn Steiner; organized by Morton Beebe

Robert Holmes has been a professional travel photographer for 35 years and laments the fact that his profession has begun to fade away.  The main focus of his work in recent years has been the production of books.  He has collaborated on 47 books including his most recent, Passion for Pinot, focusing on wineries producing Pinot Noir in Oregon and California.  His current photographic pursuits fit right in with Bob’s love of wine and cooking.

A good part of his international travel today involves teaching photographic workshops abroad rather than being sent on assignment by publishers, and his slideshow included shots taken during a workshop he taught in Burma earlier this year.  His other work as a professional photographer is being done closer to home, making life easier for him as a single father of two teenage girls.

Bob said that the proliferation of photographs available on the Internet has reduced sales of his stock photos substantially during the last three years.  However, he pointed out that Apple’s newly released iPad is creating an emerging market for photographic content and that the iPad application Beautiful Planet is a good example of this trend.

In Bob’s opinion, the best time of day to shoot photos is dawn when the light is beautiful, even more so than at sunset.  More importantly, those pesky tourists who might walk into your shot at the end of the day are usually still in bed in the early hours of the morning!   Bob suggests getting up before daybreak and beginning to shoot as the morning light evolves.

Unlike many professional photographers, Bob rarely uses a tripod unless the light level is so low that shooting with his camera hand-held is impossible.  When shooting photographs of people, Bob likes to “personalize down” his subjects, often shooting them in silhouette or from behind.

David Sanger has been a professional travel photographer for 19 years.  He feels it is difficult for one to be both photographer and writer and do both tasks well.  His photos illustrate the book San Francisco Bay: Portrait of an Estuary.

David likes to do photo essays with minimum captions. His slideshow presentation included several stories accompanied by his photographs.  He likes to have one main image that will tell the whole story and be the “photographic nut graf.”

He usually researches the location ahead of time and works from a shot list of images he needs for the story.  However, he prefers not to work with the text of the story in-hand when he is in the field.  David often shoots 6,000 images a week and submits about 400 to the editor.

Although he has shot many photos on assignment, today he primarily works as a stock photographer.  However, like Robert Holmes, he has found that on-line photo image sites such as Getty Images have decreased his own stock photo sales.

Glenn Steiner has been a professional photographer for 34 years often working with advertising agencies and directly with advertisers.  He spends two to three months a year in Greece shooting photos and teaching photo workshops.  He also teaches at universities.

Since Glenn was getting ready to depart for Greece in four days, he brought along the equipment that he typically carries on a trip.  This includes a Sony VAIO F690 light-weight laptop (about 3 pounds, costs $2,500 to $3,000; note that this model is no longer available), a Nikon D700 DSLR and three or four lenses for it.  A Canon G10 or G11 serves as his backup camera.  Glenn thinks amateurs can get great shots with today’s digital cameras.

He is fascinated by the light in Greece and likes to shoot people when he is on location there.  He said you can secretly take photos of people from a distance, but you need a long lens to do so.

He says if you get a great idea for a shot, keep going back to find it.  He likes to include interesting foregrounds and backgrounds in his shots.

Glenn usually shoots 20 to 30 variations of the same scene to give editors great flexibility in choosing the right image for the project in question.  (Marc Longwood said that we need to be aware of editor’s needs and shoot both vertical and horizontal shots of a scene to make it easier for the editor to chose the one that will best fit the photos into the page layout along with the text).

Like Robert and David, Glenn shoots images in RAW because you can get more color and tone variation.  Although some professional photographers like to use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for photo editing, Glenn prefers Adobe’s original Photoshop program.

–        Dick Jordan and Sandy Sims, BATW Program Chair

Culinary traditions are important elements of culture and history.  Cuisine and the technology of its production show how people cope with food sources, vegetation, climate and the numerous other aspects of their environment.  As tourism and heritage conservation become important to community pride and to their livelihood, culinary history becomes a point of reference to social planning and well being.

The Philippines with its 7,000 islands of tropical beauty is one of the best kept culinary secrets in the world of tourism.  Now, the Department of Tourism is taking the story of its multifaceted culinary heritage to the world.  Philippine culinary vignettes and period recipes from as far back as the 1500s are presented  in a coffee table publication titled The Governor-General’s Kitchen.  Complementing the publication comes a package of 13  ”Kulinarya Food Trips” offered by the Philippine travel industry.

“The Governor-General lives like a king, and his grand receptions are the glory of Manila,” wrote an American journalist, in a preview of Philippine life during the Spanish and American colonial occupations when 112 Spaniards and 11 American governors-general ruled over the islands from 1569 onward.  For close to 400 years, the governor-general’s table represented the epitome of Western cuisine and culture on the archipelago.  It was the inspiration for countless recipes and a social etiquette that evolved singular to the hospitable, festival-loving Philippine people.

The Governor-General’s Kitchen shares stories of how insular cooks with nothing but simple clay stoves and pots produced everything from galantines forced with locally grown capers to pináis — boiled banana-leaf pillows filled with delicately flavored banak fish.  Having learned to distill spirits, the island-rum became world famous.  As the beehive oven found its following, native bakers turned out feathery hojaldres cookies and towering croquembouche sometimes filled with pineapple and cream.  How the people of the Philippines transformed tropical ingredients into delicious meals and splendid edible fancies is a tribute to culinary creativity.  The Governor General’s Kitchen attempts to show how it all happened over the centuries.

Showcased in the banquet of 13 “Kulinarya Food Trips” marketed by the Philippines travel industry are an array of distinctive regional dishes created with local ingredients with their very special flavors.  They also reflect the influence of the various foreign cultures that impacted the Philippines for half a millennium.

For instance, the Ilocondia Culinary Tour introduces the visitor to cooking that is as exclusive as the region’s heritage churches and historic villages.  The Pampanga Kulinarya Tour takes one to the “Food Capital of the Philippines”, the center for desserts and pastries.  Bicol Kulinarya is a chili hot tour of the Bicol region where hot chili peppers rule the dinner table.  The Iloilo Kulinarya traces the roots of southern culinary specialties with visits to ancestral houses.  Other culinary tours transport the visitor to exotic places such as  Cebu, “Queen City of the South” famous for mangoes, and Davao City, home to the “heavenly” durian fruit.  Finally there is a tour of Bohol’s  ”Chocolate Hills”, which regrettably cannot be eaten.  Instead one has to go for peanut kisses!

– Lakshman Ratnapala
BATW International Consultant

The Larkspur Public Library’s Armchair Travel Series presents “Secrets of European Rail Travel: Tips and Tricks for Successful Vacations by Rail” on May 10, 2010.

Jim Prchlik, regional sales director of Rail Europe, will give a detailed presentation on the ins and outs of European rail travel. He will cover the extensive European rail system, exploring the variety of options available in routes and destinations, ticketing choices such as passes or point-to-point ticketing, first class versus second class, sleepers, stations and more.

The talk is at 7:30 p.m. at the library at 400 Magnolia Ave. in Larkspur in Marin County.

For information, call the library at (415) 927-5006.

Questions?  Contact Dawn Vivenzio in Member Services at (626) 376-9754.

The good news is that President Obama has at last signed the Travel Promotion Act into law. With that the United Stated is equipping itself to compete in the international travel market by promoting diverse attractions under a collective national brand, as so many other countries are doing. It is a historic victory for which the U.S. travel industry has fought for so long.

The Travel Promotion Act establishes a public-private partnership to promote the U.S. and to communicate U.S. security and entry policies. According to analysis by Oxford Economics, the bill is estimated to drive $4 billion in new consumer spending annually, provide $321 million in new federal tax revenue each year and create 400,000 jobs nationwide. Overseas visitors spend an average of over $4,000 when they visit the U.S.

The TPA is funded through a matching program featuring up to $100 million in private-sector contributions and a $10 fee on foreign travelers who do not pay $131 for a visa to enter the United States. The fee is to be collected once every two years in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security’s electronic system for travel authorization.

Now for the bad news. The San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau (SFVCB) released its annual estimate of the economic impact of the tourism industry in the city, reporting that last year (2009) San Francisco saw a drop in both visitor numbers and expenditures. The negative results had a spill-over effect throughout the Bay Area as tourist destinations all around the bay and beyond depend much on excursions originating in San Francisco.

Total number of visitors to San Francisco in 2009 was 15.4 million, a decrease of 5.8 percent, and visitor expenditures amounted to $7.8 billion, a drop of 7.8 percent from the previous year. The data was not unexpected, given the state of the global economy, but it is especially disturbing in the light of the importance of tourism to the economic health of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

The tourism industry generated over $426 million in taxes for the city of San Francisco, down 19.2 percent from 2008. The industry supported 66,837 jobs in 2009 with an annual payroll of $1.8 billion. There was an average of 125,407 visitors in San Francisco each day, last year. They spent $21.5 million daily, on average.

Now, to help boost hotel business, the SFCVB is casting a wider net for meetings and conventions. Also, this summer, for the third year in a row, the Bureau is orchestrating a cooperative campaign with several major cultural venues to promote San Francisco’s “embarrassment of riches” in art exhibitions, targeting “cultural travelers” in prime feeder markets to the city. This month (April, 2010) SFCVB will be launching a new campaign aimed at gay and lesbian (LGBT) travelers, a key market segment for San Francisco, considered to be the #2 overall destination in America for LGBT travelers.

– Lakshman Ratnapala
BATW International Consultant