Power of Travel Coalition promotes tourism at grassroots level

The U.S. Travel Association has launched another initiative in an effort to boost travel and tourism, but this one aims to start from the grassroots level. The Power of Travel Coalition encourages professionals who work in the travel industry to make their voices heard by calling elected officials, communicating with local media to get stories out, recruiting friends and neighbors to host events, organizing virtual town hall meetings and more.

The coalition website outlines steps that travel professionals can take to become an active member of the group and provides downloadable recruiting toolkits, one for destination representatives, one for travel-related companies, and one for community members who want to reach out to their neighbors in tourism-dependent cities and towns. The coalition also uses social media to reach out, asking people to submit questions for virtual town hall meetings on Twitter by using the #traveltownhall hashtag. This new coalition comes six months after the Senate passed the Travel Promotion Act, which was created by the U.S. Travel Association in an effort to encourage travel among domestic and international passengers.

Update Sept. 14, 2010: Commerce Department names Corporation for Travel Promotion board members, created by the Travel Promotion Act | Read more