Blog
Treat Your Destination Marketing Plan like Your Retirement Savings Plan
A major objective of both a marketing program and retirement planning is growth. Both short-term and long-term. It’s easier to measure the growth in your investments because the results show up on your statement each month. Sometimes the balance goes up and sometimes...
Untrue Claims Nibble Away at Brand Credibility
In an episode of the great TV series The West Wing, a former staffer had written a tell-all book that included some stories that were totally fabricated. The media loved interviewing the author who gladly repeated his false claims on every show to sell more book. Most...
Break is over. We’re back to blogging.
Here at Mikula-Harris we took a little time off from blogging. We have written consistently for our clients — blogs, e-newsletters and other content, but we have enjoyed a bit of a break from posting on our own blog. We're refreshed and returning to regular posting....
Tourism Recovery Begins
Lately, there is not much on the evening news that puts me in a good mood. This brief mention of tourism in Bath County, however, made our entire team happy. This is what we work for. This segment on WDBJ in Roanoke is just a brief update, but if it were a more...
…in between is pure bliss
The Mikula-Harris team is just getting started on a branding project for the Town of Appomattox, VA. It's a cool small town located east of Lynchburg. The drive between our office in Vinton and Appomattox is especially wonderful because most of the miles are in...
A Fun Tourism Promotion for New Hampshire Unfolds on Twitter
One day last week while sitting at my desk in Virginia, I enjoyed a virtual tour of some tourist hot spots in New Hampshire. The production value was barely adequate — looked like much of it was filmed on a phone. The tour guide's authenticity and love for the state...
Incentives for Travel — Good Idea or Bad?
We have written two previous blogs encouraging communities to find ways to make travel and tourism part of the economic recovery in 2021. Our rationale in those earlier blogs was not to offer loans or grants to tourism businesses, although they have certainly been hit...
Now is the time to invest in tourism marketing
A few weeks ago in this space, we published a post titled "Make Tourism Part of the Comeback." I think a lot of people interpreted it as a gentle reminder, "Hey, don't forget about travel and tourism." Readers not in the tourism industry probably thought of the blog...
Brands Matter More Than Ever
The combination of a strong brand and effective marketing are more important than ever as destinations emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. To be clear, it really mattered before the crisis hit. This situation has turned a lot of things about life in America...
Make Tourism Part of the Comeback
No industry will be unaffected by the COVID-19 Pandemic. Some will experience setbacks and others will be utterly devastated. Many of our clients are in the tourism and hospitality sector so we are keenly attuned to that industry. There is no way to sugarcoat it -...