So I just went to a Public Relations Travel and Tourism Conference in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (surprisingly a very nice city by the way, not all steel mills and blue collar workers). The 3 days of meetings and seminars was very “green” focused and tons about social media taking over print news and the internet. Just like this blog, hehe. Attendees  were from cities all of the United States and a few from Canada, Britain, and Cancun. Each had their own pitch about where they were from and why it was the better travel destination. So there we were together learning great new PR tactics but also battling to talk to travel writers and even the Travel Channel producers.

Meeting people from other cities and seeing how they describe their locations in the first few sentences was very interesting. That quick ten second pitch about how their city is the best, most interesting, fun, beautiful, relaxing, etc. intrigued me to think about how Galvestonians characterize our Island when they are put up against the question of “where and what is Galveston?”

There are so many ways to talk about a destination depending on who you’re talking to. Do you begin with location? The majority of people do not really know where Galveston is, let alone know it’s an island.

Or do you tell them automatically where your favorite place here is? Do you answer by saying oh you can’t miss Moody Gardens or the Pier 21 movie of the Great Storm of 1900 or your choice of the best place to eat?

Is history where you start? Do you explain that Galveston was the Wall Street of the south and the story of the Balinese Room or about the devastation of the Great Storm?  

I was sitting next to a girl from Montana at a lunch and I admitted to her that I had never been to Montana and didn’t really know much about it; her first comment was that it had lots of mountains with beautiful views. Hmmm ok well that doesn’t tell me much. What happened in Montana, what makes it special, and why shouldn’t I just see mountains in Colorado instead?

Usually your first description of Galveston can either lead to how you are related to Galveston…BOI, IBC, or do you commute. Or the conversation can go to the connection the person you’re talking to has with Galveston. My Montana conversation led to me asking what I could do in Montana, since I didn’t know anything about it. She replied with “oh lots of things in nature, like biking, hiking or horse back riding.” OK so lots of nature in Montana…this was where our conversation sort of ended because she didn’t really tell me much and our plate of cold meat arrived and everyone started poking the food asking if it was suppose to be cold.

I spoke a lot about Galveston and took many different approaches to do so and those led to many interesting conversations. One girl had been to a wedding at the Galvez and totally loved it. Others had never heard of Galveston and found it to be a place they didn’t know was so interesting and said they should really plan a trip.

I found the conference a true learning experience and now I have remembered the thousands of things I need to be working on. My “to do” list has jumped from 20 to 50 in just a three day conference.

All in all, my question to you is how are you describing Galveston when you first meet someone? And where is that conversation leading to?