Gulf Spill Challenges Travel Marketers

Destinations linked to their environment

I’ve been thinking about the impact of the Gulf Oil Spill for destinations and travel marketers in the Gulf Region. These resorts and attractions depend on their natural environment to attract visitors: clear, blue water and white sand beaches are powerful draws for travelers. When environmental disasters strike – natural or manmade – these sensitive areas are the hardest hit. Yet destination and tourism marketers need to press on, through good times and bad.

Resort hotel born under a black cloud

One example of marketing through the bad times is the recent opening of the Margaritaville Beach Hotel in Pensacola Beach, Florida. This launch was planned long before the oil spill began, but attracting visitors to a Gulf resort as the spill looms off-shore is a big challenge to overcome. 

The resort hotel is “Inspired by the lyrics and lifestyle of Jimmy Buffett... the perfect setting for guests who want to escape the everyday. Anyone who has ever dreamed of escaping to a tropical island and sipping a margarita will enjoy being immersed in the Margaritaville experience at this hotel.” 

An offshore oil spill seems to infringe on this escape fantasy – tar balls washing over your flip flops is a buzz-kill. On a positive note, the resort’s parent company has scheduled benefit concerts to help fight the spill. Hopefully this environmental disaster will fade from memory like a tequila hangover and won’t discourage next season’s revelers from joining the party.

As fellow members of the travel and tourism industry, we offer our best wishes for a speedy recovery to all Gulf Shore businesses and residents.

Instant Oil Spill offers a minor diversion

On the subject of oil spills, I stumbled upon a clever web page yesterday. Instant Oil Spill allows you to create your own oil spill on any website.

According to the site, “Now you can have the same disregard for the environment (albeit virtual) that big oil does every day.” I chose the BP site to try it out, but still didn’t find much satisfaction. Face it: oil is a messy business.