Program has 45 Leaders, Experts on eTourism: Less than two months ago, Will Seccombe had to resign from his position as president and CEO of Visit Florida over an expired $1 million dollar contract with the globally known rapper, Pitbull. He will discuss his experience with the program that led to the controversy.
Slated to take place over two days (March 14-15, 2017) in Philadelphia, NAJ’s eTourism Labs (a product that evolved from NAJ’s annual eTourism Summit in San Francisco) “is actually ‘three-fer’ opportunity for the serious tour and travel industry digital marketer,” explains Jake Steinman, founder and CEO of the NAJ Group, which also publishes the Inbound Report.
The three components include: “Digital Media Strategies Built around Measurement,” a workshop addressing the latest media strategies and an “ROI Parade” featuring the latest ways marketers are calculating value for their funders; a full-day workshop covering Video Creation and Distribution called “Visual Storytelling”; and a “Boot Camp for Newbies.” Specially designed training for new hires or P.R. staff making the transition from traditional to digital? (Designed in collaboration with Destination Marketing Association International).
Attendees will hear from 45 experts about the future of native advertising, content marketing strategies, Addressable TV, cross device attribution, influencer marketing, video sharing psychology, social media marketing, e-mail marketing, web design and practical panels that will discuss such topics as tactics to replace website traffic lost to Google algorithm changes.
“We’re fortunate to be able to hear from Will Seccombe about his experience and about what can go wrong when the objectives of a destination marketing campaign clash with the agendas of elected public officials,” said Steinman. “All of us will benefit from what he has to say.”
Along with two other senior Visit Florida officials, Seccombe lost his job in the wake of revelations that the organization had a $1 million contract with Pitbull (the stage name for Armando Christian Pérez, a Miami native who still lives in the area) to promote Florida, as well as criticism on the part of some state legislators of a promotional video, “Sexy Beaches.”
Because of the legal structure of the private-public Visit Florida, Gov. Rick Scott, while praising the work of Visit Florida during Seccombe’s more than four years with the organization, had to ask William Talbert, president and CEO of the Greater Miami CVB and chairman of the board to ask for Seccombe’s resignation. All of this action took place in the week before Christmas.
For complete program and registration information, visit: http://labs.etourismsummit.com/
