This should really be the Tourist Ad for the USA!

Peter and Blake, two young filmmakers, and founders of Conscious Minds Productions, recently launched grassroots work Project Beaker with their director friend Sam.

Armed with just a camera, tripod, tape measure and a string with a blown-up paper protractor, the trio captured one guy's journey walking from the streets of New York to San Francisco. 2,750 still frames, 14 days, and 2 pairs of Levi's jeans later is their video love letter.

So now you need to watch the clip. The song is Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Black Box Inventor Dies..

David Warren, the Australian inventor whose "black box" flight data recorder revolutionised the safety of air travel and aided countless crash investigations has died aged 85.

His own father died in a plane crash and he hit upon the "black box" idea while probing a 1953 disaster involving the world's first commercial jetliner.

"Without any explanation, without any witnesses, without any survivors ... it was a really baffling mystery," Warren said in a 2003 interview.

Warren, who died on Monday, was the first European child born on Groote Eylandt, a remote Aboriginal island in Australia's northeast, in 1925.

His father was among 12 people on board the "Miss Hobart" mail plane that vanished over the southern Bass Strait in 1934, one of Australia's earliest air disasters.

Then just nine years of age, Warren was left with his father's last gift to him, a crystal radio set, which he used to listen to broadcasts after lights-out in his boarding school dormitory.

Building radios soon became his schoolboy hobby, but a World War II ban on amateur radio led Warren to dump his nascent ambitions as a "radio ham" in favour of chemistry, his ultimate career path.

He first hatched the idea of cockpit voice and data recording while investigating a 1953 crash of the Comet, the world's first commercial jet, basing his design on a miniature pocket recorder he had seen at a trade fair.

"I put the two ideas together," he said.

"If a businessman had been using one of these in the plane and we could find it in the wreckage and we played it back, we'd say, 'We know what caused this.'

"Any sounds that were relevant to what was going on would be recorded and you could take them from the wreckage."

After an initial lack of interest from authorities, Warren built a prototype "black box" in 1956. It was able to store four hours of voice recordings and instrument readings.

The idea was slow to catch on, with Australia's Department of Civil Aviation advising Warren that his "instrument has little immediate direct use in civil aviation".

Military authorities went further still, with the Royal Australian Air Force dismissing it as unnecessary and likely to "yield more expletives than explanations".

It took a lunchtime demonstration of the device to a visiting British official in 1958 for the potential of his design to be recognised and christened the "black box" -- a reference to its technical mastery.

"One of the people in the discussion afterwards said, 'This is a wonderful black box'," Warren said. "A black box was a gadget box. You didn't have to understand it but it did wonderful things."

It was 10 years before black boxes -- in fact brightly painted to make them easy to spot at crash sites -- were made mandatory in Australian aircraft. "Our driving force was air safety so we felt that it's succeeded in that regard," he said in 2003. "It's a very satisfying feeling."

We're always on the look-out for great marketing ideas and here's a great one from Thai Airways whose revenues have suffered due to the recent political unrest.

Their great ruse to raise additional revenues is to sell their in-flight food to people who aren't flying!!!

Their target, it seems, is the typical business traveller who has had a 'good in-flight experience' but has no time to prepare the food at home..

An example we're sure will be closely followed by BA and many other airlines!

We see that the European Union unveiled plans on Wednesday to attract more visitors from the likes of China and Russia, hoping tourism can help the region bounce back from the economic crisis.

The European commissioner responsible for tourism said better use of technology would be critical in attracting more tourists, with plans for a Europe travel website in Chinese and other ideas in the works for Russia, Japan, India and Brazil.

Travel to and within Europe, which includes several of the world's top tourism destinations, has taken a big hit since the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, and was further dented this year by the volcanic ash cloud in April and May.

The number of tourists visiting Europe dropped by 5.6 percent in 2009 from 2008, according to the World Tourism Organisation, with the total value of tourism receipts falling by a more substantial 8 percent to 295.7 billion euros ($362 billion).

That's a trend the EU desperately wants to turn around.

"The European Commission wants to be the trailblazer working to breathe new life into this vital sector," EU commissioner Antonio Tajani told reporters. "It needs to recover from the economic and financial crisis it has been so hard-struck by in the last few months."

The aim is to stimulate more tourism within Europe, by encouraging more young and old people -- those who have more time on their hands -- to travel, while also drawing in more visitors from rapidly developing countries.

With the euro single currency, which is shared by 16 EU countries, having lost more than 10 percent of its value against the dollar this year, the likes of France, Spain and Italy are now relatively cheaper for foreigners to visit.

Quoting the Roman theologian Saint Augustine, Tajani said it was everyone's duty to see as much of the world as possible.

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page," he said.

One idea being discussed to encourage more young people to travel is to make it possible to book train, plane and hotel tickets via mobile phones. The broader idea is to use technology better and more frequently to promote travel and tourism.

For Europeans aged 65 and over, who are expected to make up 20 percent of the region's 500 million people by 2020, the EU proposals recommend targeted marketing and measures to make tourist sites accessible to those with reduced mobility.

The initiative will not be limited to attracting more visitors to the favourite destinations such as France, Spain, Britain and Italy, Tajani promised, saying it should be targeted at all 27 EU member states.

Tourism accounts for 9.7 million jobs in the EU, employing 5.2 percent of the workforce, according to EU estimates.

Oil on the Beach!

Brave marketing from Spirit Airlines. The company is known for irreverent marketing campaigns but their latest offering is a coming under a lot of flak. In a new promotion, Spirit is using wordplay to show that at least one Florida beach contains oil - sun tan oil.

The company says the promotion seeks to address "the false perception that we have oil on our beaches," by encouraging customers to continuing to travel to Florida and other vacation hot spots.

Upon visiting the Spirit Airlines website, visitors are greeted by a large photo slide show that begins with "Check Out The Oil On Our Beaches." The slide show continues with images of glistening bikini-clad women relaxing in the sand, with descriptions of summer hotspots, including Cancun, San Juan, Atlantic City, and Ft. Lauderdale. The pitch ends with a bottle of "SPF $50 off."

Clicking through leads to an offer of $50 off a roundtrip airfare to selected destinations for a limited time. Apparently, not everyone is happy with the promotion, and Spirit says they wanted to provide clarification. "It is unfortunate that some have misunderstood our intention with today’s beach promotion," the company says. They also point out that "the only oil you’ll find when traveling to our beaches is sun tan oil."

Others think it's great for the state. Spirit says they received an email from a Gulf-side vacation home owner who "appreciate's the airlines efforts to stimulate travel to Florida."

In the spirit of marketing, it has achieved it's objective of course, people are sitting up and taking notice and many people who may never have heard of Spirit now have!

WTTC Tourism For Tomorrow Awards

Winners have been announced for the World Travel & Tourism Council’s 2010 Tourism for Tomorrow Awards. Of the 12 finalists, Emirates Hotels & Resorts, Whale Watch Kaikoura, Accor, and Botswana Tourism Board, were crowned the winners for their successful work in advancing sustainable tourism best practices in different parts of the world:-

WHALE WATCH KAIKOURA, NEW ZEALAND

Indigenous Maori-owned and locally operated, Whale Watch Kaikoura wins the Community Benefit Award for its outstanding achievement in rebuilding the local economy through community-based tourism in Kaikoura on the East Coast of South Island in New Zealand. Whale Watch Kaikoura specializes in giving more than 100,000 visitors annually the opportunity for up-close observation of marine life, including rare Sperm Whales, using environmentally-friendly vessels. The company was founded in 1987 by local Maori, to create jobs for the indigenous Ngati Kuri community, and has since grown into a multi-million dollar nature tourism business.

EMIRATES HOTELS RESORTS, UAE

In the Conservation category, Emirates Hotels & Resorts is awarded for its success in creating the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve (DDCR) – the first protected area in the United Arab Emirates – through the establishment of the Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa. In Australia, their Wolgan Valley Resort next to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area is one of the best examples in the world of conservation through tourism. The project is successfully reversing extensive grazing and development damage to restore rare native flora and fauna.

BOTSWANA TOURISM BOARD

Botswana Tourism Board is awarded the Destination Stewardship Award for its "low-volume - high-yield" approach to tourism in the Okavango Delta – an internationally-recognized Ramsar Site (ODRS) and particularly for the legislative framework put in place and ecotourism standards to ensure proper management of one of the world's most iconic nature travel destinations. Today, sustainable tourism in the Okavango employs 34 percent of the adult population in the area, while protecting the largest inland wetland in the world for future generations.

ACCOR, FRANCE GLOBAL

Accor wins the award for Global Tourism Business for its Earth Guest Program and company-wide philosophy based on hospitality, respect for diverse cultures, environmental best practices, and the social welfare of local people where they operate in more than 100 countries.

Tourism as Exports

One of the mistakes that economic developers and business experts make is ignoring tourism as a major export industry. In fact tourism is often a renewable export that if used properly can also be a major economic development too.

Tourism is not only big business but also tourism should be seen and protected as perhaps one of the world's premier export products. The fact that tourism is an export industry is noted in a Jamaican study which stated: "An export industry is one that sells a significant share of its goods or services outside of the country, thus bringing new money into the local economy. Tourism appears to meet these two tenets as the Jamaica Tourist Board reports that over 90 per cent of our tourists are international and the Bank of Jamaica reports that the industry contributed some US$1,975,519,000 to foreign exchange earnings in 2008" (Jamaica WI Gleaner, June 21, 2008). If we, then, assume that exports refer to money going from place X to place Y due to the sale of product W, then tourism easily meets this standard.

What especially makes tourism a valuable export product is that, if cared for properly, it is a sustainable and renewable resource. Unlike primary resources, such as petroleum or minerals, tourism is not finite. No matter how many people visit the ocean, the ocean is still the ocean, and no matter how many people view a mountain, the mountain remains in place. In fact, in places that have lost manufacturing jobs, tourism offers an alternative advantage in that unlike manufacturing jobs, visits to a specific locale cannot be shipped offshore. Tourism's sustainability does not mean, however, that a tourism product must not be protected. Tourism, like any commodity, can be overused, exploited poorly or allowed to decline. Tourism also needs the support of the local community. Without this support, tourism often becomes an unsustainable product. In order then to use your tourism industry as an export product Tourism & More suggests the following.

1. Educate your community about the fact that tourism is the world's largest peacetime industry, and of its economic benefits. For those people who like facts and figures, according to the World Tourism Council in 2006 tourism produced over US$6 trillion. It is estimated that the world's tourism industries provided around the world 221 million jobs, with an expectation that by 2015 tourism will be providing some 269 million jobs. Even with the world's economic problems it is hoped that by 2015, tourism's growth rate is expected to average 4.6% per year. The Organization for Economic and Operational Development reports on its web site that: "Tourism…is a key component of the service economy (30% of international trade in services in the OECD area). Tourism, which has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years, looks set to continue growing as societies become more mobile and prosperous." In the USA the US Bureau of Labor Statistics measures changes in the prices of goods bought in the USA by foreign visitors. These goods plus services are a US export.

2.Demonstrate to your community how tourism adds to your local economy in a variety of ways. Included are hotel and restaurant expenditures and taxes, conventions and meetings, taxes paid on transportation, attractions of foreign capital, especially in hotel construction, creation of additional jobs in such areas as public services and infrastructure renewal.

3.Make sure that people understand that tourism not only generates employment but also may be a major renewable export source. The tourism industry is all about the selling of memories. The industry helps to bring foreign money to a particular locale where visitors buy local goods and services. Visitors take home the memory of the good time. Tourism professionals understand that the vacation memory is an abstract export commodity. Furthermore, tourism attractions rarely get depleted or disappear; thousands/millions of people can see the same attraction. Foreign visitors also become a major source of foreign exchange, and helping a nation's balance of payment. It must be noted however that for tourism to be a renewable resource it must be developed in a sustainable/responsible manner. That means that where ecologies are fragile, numbers and activities must be tightly controlled, pollution must be prevented, and local cultures protected.

4.Tourism can be an export product even in rural areas. Tourism is about seeing what is different. Rural areas that may be losing population or industry can become tourism centers and create need job opportunities for their younger people. Visitations by foreign tourists also can result in cross-national networking opportunities.

5.Do not be afraid to use creative marketing to attract new money to your area. For example, according to the Travel Association of America, in the United States the tourism industry produces over $600 billion dollars in revenue and over $100 billion in taxes paid to local, state and federal governments. Much of this money comes from visitors from overseas, who earn their money in their home nation and then bring it to another nation. Tap into this market with creative marketing and do not be afraid to flaunt your region, what may seem common place to you may become an international attraction to others.

6.Market in as many languages as possible. Turning your tourism product into an export market means being open to the world. Develop foreign language brochures, encourage the teaching of foreign languages in your school system, and teach your own culture. Tourism does best when it represents the best of who you are to others. Ironically when you celebrate your own culture you become an export market for visitors from other cultures.

7.Emphasize that tourism is an important economic development tool for emerging and minority communities around the world. Because tourism is based on the appreciation of the other, tourism industries have been especially open to giving disadvantaged groups around the world opportunities that have often been denied to them by other economic sectors. In this respect tourism should not been viewed only at the surface level. Tourism produces not only income from foreign guests but also provides large numbers of entry level jobs, and often means the difference between a smaller community's business success and failure.. In nations where there is a decline in manufacturing, the tourism industry can be an essential method to reinvigorate local economies. The bottom line is that tourism is an export commodity that can also become an economic and educational development tool bringing wealth to the local economy while protecting its cultural ecology.

Our thanks to Peter E. Tarlow of T&M for this article.