Taking it to the Streets Bus Tour 2009

On Friday, April 3 the Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau launched our spring Tourism Road Show or as we’re calling it, the “Takin’ it to the Streets Bus Tour.”. The reasoning behind this endeavor is to do all that we can to stimulate, influence and increase leisure travel into Louisville this summer. National reports strongly indicate that an automobile vacation is regaining its popularity in America, and with gas prices projected to hover between $2.25 and $2.50 a gallon, automobile vacations are expected to surge. So our plan is to be on the front end of that curve by getting out there and asking 100,000 people to visit Louisville this summer.
 

An example of the execution of the campaign goes like this: 45,000 people are expected to attend opening day for the Cincinnati Reds. Our bus will be parked near the stadium, and our team of Louisville hospitality associates will accompany the bus. I’d like to note that we have over 60 Kentucky businesses partnering with us on this campaign. We have also established a partnership with a local radio station in Cincinnati to do some on site broadcasting from the bus location. From our location, we will give away promotional items (over 9,000 items were donated to this campaign by Louisville’s area attractions and travel partners) and coupons (we’ve hired a local high school band that will assist us in handing out our vacation discount coupon books.) We are also supporting the campaign with additional on-air commercials and have reminded folks in the Cincinnati area via email about our stop in their city. Our objective is to reach as many people as possible attending the Reds home opener.

We will be taking our leisure vacation message to four states including Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Tennessee. Our 1,800 mile trek will stop at the following cities: Renfro Valley, Lexington, Cincinnati, Evansville, Indianapolis, Chicago, Paducah, Bowling Green and Nashville. All nine cities are within a five hour drive of Louisville, with Chicago being the furthest. Our designated locations in each of the nine cities are high traffic zones, and our objective is to hand out over 100,000 Louisville vacation coupon books plus drive additional customers to our website, where more discounts are available.

A second objective is to capture email addresses from locals in each city so we can follow up with additional discount vacation offers. As a traffic driver we are also offering a pair of Kentucky Derby Tickets in a drawing to anyone who registers at each location. That’s nine pairs of Kentucky Derby tickets plus a chance to win another set in 2010 if you register at www.gotolouisville.com/save. The vacation discount offers are posted on the site and available to anyone with just a click or two.

We are leasing the bus through Miller Transportation and the bus wrap was designed by Digital Wraps—both of which are Louisville-based companies. Digital Wraps did a magnificent job in the design as everyone was impressed at the rollout press conference on Friday.

I want to provide a special thank you to the following LCVB staff members who pulled this campaign together:

Dineene Bradley
Nicole Twigg
Gayla Schaftlein
Kate Amara
Stacey Yates
Nancy Stephen
Mark Perry
Gathan Borden
Diane Staton
Lauren McAlpin

Without their help, hard work and commitment we would not have been able to launch this very important initiative. Thank you team!