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Connecticut Tourism Topics & Speakers

Delivered February 7, 2020. Contributor: Amy R.

Goals

To plan the keynote speaker and breakout session topics for an upcoming conference in Connecticut aimed at providing education and inspiration to businesses supporting tourism in the state.

Early Findings

  • The 2019 New Jersey Conference on Tourism included topics on branding, using Google for growth, tourism analytics, international tourism, content-driven marketing, website-building, experiential tourism, climate change-related tourism topics, scenic byways, state-based theme topics ("NJ American Dream"), and heritage tourism.
  • The Connecticut tourism industry, in 2015, was challenged by a need to quantify its tourism economy. This may still be an issue within the state since one tourism district had to return funds that went unspent during the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
  • Another challenge faced by the Connecticut tourism industry is that the state was recently at risk for losing millions in tourism revenue to other states, namely New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
  • At the 2019 Governor’s Conference on Tourism and Recreation in Montana, the conference organizers used TV personality and Travel Channel host Samantha Brown as the opening keynote speaker.
  •  Roger Brooks is promoted as a bookable speaker by the Destination Development Association. Brooks is described as “an incredible motivational keynote speaker, thought leader, and change-agent in tourism development, downtown destination marketing, and economic development. His audience includes government leaders, businesses, and non-profits looking to increase their travel spending. He is described as an "enthusiastic storyteller with real-life, meaningful content so your attendees go home excited and motivated to implement what they learned." A video of one of Brooks’s presentations can be viewed here.
In addition to this public search, we scanned our proprietary research database of over 1 million sources and were unable to find any specific research reports that address your goals.

Proposed next steps:

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The research team can continue the research by reviewing topics covered at similar conferences to the Connecticut Conference on Tourism. We will look at other sessions covered at relevant conferences in northeastern states and by destination marketing organizations. The team will also review covered topics at similar conferences in other states. We will seek to provide 15-20 previous conference examples, with details about the topics covered, and links for more information.
The research team can also assist by reviewing 7-10 trending topics in destination marketing, driving state tourism, or Connecticut tourism to inspire ideas for a keynote speaker. For each trending topic identified, we will provide a suggested speaker on the subject, details on why/how the speaker is linked to the topic, and details on how to contact the potential speaker.
The research team might also be able to help inspire conference topics by identifying 5-7 key issues in the Connecticut state tourism industry.