Words from Wooden - April 2016
As I write this month’s edition of “Words from Wooden,” I am travelling alongside fellow L.A. Tourism officials to meet with travel trade and media in New Delhi and Mumbai and promote our destination within India, the second-fastest growing market for outbound travel in the world. Our recently established presence in this key region with representation by Sartha Global Marketing is critical to our strategy for growing international visitation to Los Angeles.
After India, our tourism delegation will shift to Arabian Travel Market, the leading global event for the Middle East travel industry, in Dubai. This region’s outbound travel market has seen remarkable growth over the last few years, with 38 million trips made across the world in 2014. Our research shows visitors to L.A. from the top five markets within this emerging region accounted for more than $383 million in direct spending in 2014. As the Middle East has been a high-growth region for service to LAX, we are strengthening our focus with official representation by Four Communications with offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Los Angeles continues to stay hot as a global tourist destination and we’ll be celebrating our thriving industry in the coming weeks. National Travel and Tourism Week (May 1-7, 2016) brings together the tourism community, as cities and states nationwide come together and champion the power of the travel industry. We will be announcing our 2015 economic impact numbers for Los Angeles, which demonstrate like nothing else the importance of tourism to our local community.
These are just a few of the many updates on L.A. Tourism and our industry that we’re sharing with you in this month’s newsletter. As always, we will be here, working on behalf of all of our members and partners to keep the world coming to Los Angeles.
Best wishes,
[[{"fid":"271264","view_mode":"media_original","fields":{"format":"media_original","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_media_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_media_title[und][0][value]":"","field_tags[und]":"","field_folder[und]":"325"},"type":"media","link_text":null,"attributes":{"height":126,"width":177,"class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]]
Ernest Wooden Jr.
President and CEO
Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board
