Lake Charles, Louisiana Teams up with Houston—143 Miles to the West—to promote region: In what might be considered a variation of “Thinking outside the Box,” the tourism promotion team for Southwestern Louisiana and Visit Houston decided to take the concept a few miles more (143 miles or 230 kilometers) and “Thinking outside the Boundary” by promoting each other.
The new approach of promoting non-contiguous destinations created a lot of buzz during the recent ITB trade show in Berlin for both Louisiana and Visit Houston.
Mike Prejean ( left), who is with the Louisiana Office of Tourism and Anne Taber Klenke ( right), tourism director for the Lake/Charles/Southwest Louisiana Satellite Office, were able to explain the unassailable logic of the joint promotion through the collateral that they made available at ITB. The information, some of which is below, shows that:
—Houston is already a major international gateway for international visitors to the United States from key regional source markets such as Europe, Asia and Latin America.
—Visitors to Houston will have additional incentive to use Houston as its gateway to the U.S. by promoting experiences (and destinations) that are within easy drive time distances.
—Lake Charles and Southwestern Louisiana fit the above definition perfectly. So do other points north, east, south and west of Houston.
