Creative Adventure Travel and Outdoor Recreation Industry Partnerships Yield Results

14 July 2010
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The Adventure Travel Trade Association continues to bridge the gap between outdoor and adventure travel industries by fostering three more successful partnerships between outdoor gear manufacturers and adventure destinations.

By Nicole Petrak, Assistant Editor, AdventureTravelNews

A meeting facilitated by ATTA at the 2009 Adventure Travel World Summit in Quebec has resulted in an in-store and online partnership between the Jordan Tourism Board North America, Marriott Hotels, and ATTA members ExOfficio and Wildland Adventures. Together they’re hosting the 2010 Jordan Adventure Sweepstakes, which culminates at the end of this month and will send the winner on a custom 9-day tour to Jordan by Wildland Adventures complete with ExOfficio Adventure Outfitting, at an approximate retail value of $15,000. The contest is currently featured on the homepages of Wildland Adventures, Jordan Tourism, and ExOfficio, and has already seen nearly 8,000 entries.

“We’re thrilled to be able to work with Wildland Adventures and Jordan Tourism Board to deliver a sweepstakes like this,” said Karen Sain, the ExOfficio Brand Manager. “Jordan is a destination that has so much to offer the adventure traveler. Wildland Adventures delivers quality authentic experiences in complete alignment with the travel personalities of our customers.”

In addition to the sweepstakes, the Jordan Tourism Board, ExOfficio, Wildland Adventures, Adventure Jordan, and GreatOutdoors.com have sponsored a 50 mile back-country expedition in the mountains of Jordan by GreatOutdoors.com editor Peter Potterfield, with noted Jordanian guide Yamaan Safady of Adventure Jordan and Jordan Tourism Board videographer Catherine Porterfield. The full story Potterfield’s trek will be featured on GreatOutdoors.com later this summer.

The ATTA has also cultivated one-on-one partnerships between Belize Tourism Board and TEVA Outdoor Footwear, and Montana Tourism and Osprey Packs. Chris Chesak, the VP of Business Development at ATTA, notes that this type of singular gear manufacturer and destination alliance, which are slightly different than the multiple brand FAM trips ATTA has organized in the past, can help the destination and the brand create a deeper and more focused program to meet their specific goals.

"This type of singular gear manufacturer and destination alliance can help the destination and the brand create a deeper and more focused program to meet their specific goals."
-Chris Chesak

Osprey and Montana’s tour resulted in a variety of video and photo content, which will be featured on both WinterMT.com and VisitMT.com, which receive one million unique visitors monthly, as well as utilized in Montana Office of Tourism email campaigns (database of 50K+). Osprey will use the materials on their company website (80K unique visitors/month), blog, YouTube channel (7,000+ channel views, 122,000+ video views, 115 subscribers), Twitter (1,250+ followers), and Facebook page (4,600+ fans), as well as in 30,000 Osprey Fall 2010 catalogs. The outdoor and travel pack manufacturer will continue to use the FAM trip images in it’s print advertising and tradeshow booths, as well as on hangtags attached to every pack distributed internationally throughout year.

The Belize Tourism Board described the FAM trip with TEVA as an “invaluable opportunity to generate awareness in our core customers.” The shots taken at the FAM trip were compiled by TEVA into a global library of images for their worldwide advertising, and have been used so far in TEVA catalogs, consumer email blasts, the website home page, Myspace and Facebook accounts, as well as the TEVA booth featured at the Outdoor Retailer, ISPO, Surf Expo WSA and Friedrichshafen. Point-of-purchase displays and shop posters were also created for in-store advertisements at retailers such as REI and Dillards.

“We’re always looking for ways to create synergies with premier brands that offer special appeal to our visitors, so when ATTA brought the TEVA project to the BTB, we were thrilled. TEVA products and brand attributes are a perfect fit for the amazing diversity of geography and adventures travelers will find in abundance throughout Belize,” said Yanick Dalhouse (VP/Public Relations Account Supervisor).

Previous, multi-brand FAM trips include one hosted by Icelandair, which was attended by Black Diamond Equipment, Camelbak, Confluence, Kelty, Leki, Marmot, and Petzl and accrued more than 3,500 photos, two brand catalogs featuring Iceland, brand posters displayed in outdoor retail shops across North America, and a 4,000-word WEND magazine feature, complete with a cover shot and online coverage. The trip also resulted in a 26-minute documentary that was premiered and distributed at Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City, and subsequently accepted at more than 20 film festivals globally. The Iceland trip generated continued cross promotional partnerships between the involved parties, including:

  • A Marmot promotion of an Iceland trip sweepstakes on their website, and Iceland promo materials, spirits and a trip giveaway at a Marmot press event in New York City.
  • Kelty and Icelandair joint promotions reaching approximately 7.5 million people, inclusive of a Kelty Iceland trip sweepstakes promoted in National Geographic Adventure and Backpacker magazines (3.5 million), joint web integrations and email blasts (about 4.5 million), promotional events (41,000) and Myspace coverage.
  • A follow-up Kelty media trip to Iceland included journalists from the New York Times, Outside, Health, Newsweek, National Geographic Adventure and others.
Called an “unbelievable success” by host Yukon WILD’s marketing manager, the Yukon FAM trip was attended by ATTA recruits Canada Goose, ExOfficio, Keen Inc, Kelty and Schoeller, and Yukon WILD reported that they were presented with offers for further joint promotions and marketing opportunities within just days of the trip’s culmination. The yield from ExOfficio alone was significant, with Yukon imagery placed in 48,000 consumer catalogs and 41,000 consumer emails, two weeks image placement on ExOfficio’s homepage, an image on a point-of-purchase piece at 400 retail locations, and two banners featuring the Yukon for Outdoor Retailer show, with 22,000 industry professional attendance.

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