Leaves changing their colors signal both a new season and IBOT's exciting new fall campaign, "Fallfillment," which will launch on Sept. 14. While we'll keep the details under our hats for now, you can count down to the big reveal with us at fallfillment.com. 

We're also so excited to invite you all to start reading and interacting with us on the Enjoy Illinois blog. After much preparation, we launched the blog earlier this week and encourage you to check back often as we'll be updating the blog with posts, images of Illinois, travel tips and fun facts about Illinois each week. I'm proud to be part of a panel of 16 bloggers (and growing), all with different backgrounds providing a unique and personal perspective of Illinois.

I'd like to spotlight a few of our talented bloggers who will be sharing their thoughts about traveling and living in Illinois. Shane Babczak of Geneva will be sharing his "family travel" experience from a dad's perspective. Springfield resident Gina Jones will spotlight Central Illinois' local markets and festivals. Aurora's Ian Everett, who started his own green travel Web site and has contributed to a variety of eco-travel guides, will discuss green travel trends. 

We want to encourage our readers to get involved and interact with us through the blog by leaving comments and keeping us updated about all things Illinois that we haven't covered. The Enjoy Illinois blog joins our other social media efforts on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube to keep us connected with you and all fans of Illinois.

Social media is an inexpensive and creative way to keep consumers interested and excited about the tourism industry. Studies show that people want to travel despite the current financial environment and it's up to all of us to appeal to our consumers through traditional and social media.  We need to be aware of how our industry is being affected and work with new and creative ways to show consumers the importance of travel. 

Using creativity to promote tourism is the subject of the book I'm recommending for this fall. A collection of essays, Creative Tourism: A Global Conversation, draws in readers with inspiring stories about the tourism industry.  One of the book's collaborators, Alex Pattakos, writes about creative tourism as finding the "spirit" of a place, as defined by its history, culture or uniqueness.  He goes on to explain how visitors become engaged by the authenticity of the travel experience and what it represents. 

As I travel throughout Illinois, I frequently find myself discovering the "spirit" of our special destinations. Every one of our local travel offices can learn how to creatively and inexpensively promote their authentic experience regardless of the state of the economy. It's dependent on thinking outside of the box and leveraging what we already have in our backyards. 

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Now Playing...Onscreen Illinois
The new Onscreen Illinois microsite launched on June 30 and delivers interesting and useful Illinois movie destinations in an engaging and interactive manner. The site features dozens of movies filmed in Illinois such as Public Enemies, The Breakfast Club and The Time Traveler's Wife; and allows consumers to learn about the various filming locations throughout the state. Additionally, the site offers movie themed getaways, a movie map, podcast, trivia and a list of film events in Illinois. Onscreen's new design features classic film-related icons to enhance the consumers' experience as they explore the site.

Wonderful World - the Movie

The Illinois Bureau of Tourism and Edelman hosted Lobmayr Film Productions from July 1 -10 in support of "Wonderful World," a feature-length documentary about the 12 most beautiful travel destinations in the world. Chicago was the only U.S. city to be included in the film, which will be released in theaters across Germany, Switzerland and Austria in January 2010. The film will depict just under 10 minutes of Chicago imagery set to an original musical score.

The film crew captured iconic Chicago locations in multiple variations of natural light throughout the day. These shots included the lakefront, the skyline, city parks, public artwork, fireworks displays and notable architectural landmarks. The crew was also allowed the opportunity to film the Chicago River via the Chicago Architectural Foundation river cruise, the evening skyline from the Odyssey dinner cruise and moving architectural shots from a Grayline Tours double decker bus. 

IBOT is especially thankful to the Chicago Film Office, the Illinois Film Office, the Chicago Park District, Millennium Park, Hotel Burnham and theWit for helping coordinate shoot details and hosting the group.

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Culinary Tourism in Southern Illinois
(Article written by Debbie Moore, Carbondale CTB Executive Director)

In 2006, the Carbondale Convention & Tourism Bureau launched a project intended to enhance the brand of the southern Illinois tourism industry. The incredible successes of the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail and the Shawnee Hills Orchard Trail supported by my hunch that further promoting the wholesale and retail sides of the region's agriculture industry would have a positive impact on the economy.  

To get things started, the we created a coordinating partnership with the Illinois Bureau of Tourism, Southern Illinois University and John A. Logan Community College. "Food, Fun & Folks" was formed with a mission to help visitors find the comfort of home--away from home. By the end of 2007, www.foodfunfolks.com was promoting the project, promotional pieces were under design and print advertising was running.   

Today, tourism product integration has been accomplished, and next steps for 2010 include packaged travel weekends with cooking classes and winery visits. We've engaged locals, and the number of culinary travelers visiting the region continues to increase. To continue the excitement and buzz, the Carbondale Bureau created a marketing campaign for 2009-2010 that focuses on the heritage of the region's foodways and the impact of agriculture on our tourism industry. Twitter and blogspot.com, along with traditional media, will be used to communicate the message that Southern Illinois is a fantastic place to visit, drink fabulous wine and eat fantastic locally grown food.

How to Avoid Failed E-mail Campaigns
"Up to 20 percent of top brand marketers continue to send e-mails to addresses on their lists that have unsubscribed - more than 10 days after a confirmed unsubscribe request."

This quote is cited from a recent study by Return Path in an article by the e-mail marketing group and self-described Web revolutionaries, eROI, in describing the importance of a well-thought-out e-mail campaign. According to eROI, creating a successful e-mail campaign requires much thought and strategy and should not be simply to blast something to subscribers without relevancy or reason. Building an e-mail campaign is all about nurturing, building trust and relationships and ultimately increasing and solidifying the reputation of a brand.

The article cites e-mail failures such as: sending to an unsubscribed customer, sending e-mails to uninterested customers, selling your e-mail lists and overdoing the design of e-mails as some of the top mistakes not to make.

Finally, for a recap from Travel 2.0 of five examples of failed e-mail campaigns check out this recent post.

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