LATCB at Work February 2014

The LATCB Sales Team held its annual GRAMMY Awards FAM trip to give meeting professionals from around the country the opportunity to experience the destination’s top meeting and event venues and hotels in person. The FAM trip had two groups. The group of seven citywide convention clients focused on the Los Angeles Convention Center and the surrounding area in Downtown. They also attended the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards as guests of Los Angeles. The hotel sales group, with 14 meeting professionals, went to the Beach Cities, LAX, San Fernando Valley, Westside, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood areas.

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The LATCB Sales Team held its annual Red Carpet Experience FAM trip, to enable nine meeting planners to see meeting and event venues. The group focused on the Westside, LAX, Downtown, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica areas. The group also attended the 40th Annual People’s Choice Awards.

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LATCB and Universal Studios Hollywood hosted the Annual Agent-Kai New Year’s Celebration Luncheon on Jan. 8, 2014 at the theme park. Each year, LATCB hosts an annual luncheon for members of Agent-Kai, an association of general managers from the top Los Angeles-based Japanese tour operators. The event highlighted Universal Studios Hollywood and its plans for new development for the next three years. There were a total of 26 attendees, including top Japanese inbound tour operator companies, which account for more than 85 percent of the Japanese visitors to Los Angeles. Japan is Los Angeles’ No. 4 market for overseas visitors, with 292,000 Japanese visitors spending more than $509 million in the local economy in 2012.  

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The LATCB International Team had a strong presence at the 2013 IME (International Meeting Expo) Dec. 10-11 at the Tokyo International Forum in Japan. LATCB partnered with Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) on a booth at the expo for the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions & Expositions) industry, the only domestic MICE tradeshow in Japan. The expo was organized by the Japan Tourism Agency, Japan Congress Convention Bureau and Japan National Tourism Organization, and brought together 133 companies, and 2,000 attendees. It offered a great opportunity to promote Los Angeles as an international MICE destination among the Japanese market, LA’s No. 4 overseas market. 

During the two day event, LATCB met with numerous buyers considering overseas meetings or incentive group travel, and with the MICE divisions of several tour operators, including JTB, the largest travel agency in Japan and one of the largest travel agencies in the world, KNT (Kinki Nippon Tourist), NTA (Nippon Travel Agency) and Keio Travel Agency. 

The LATCB International Team participated in a Golden Globe Awards event in Tokyo, Japan on Jan. 14, 2014, organized by the AXN TV network, which has exclusive rights to broadcast the Golden Globe Awards in Japan. The event was held at the “Billboard Live” in the Roppongi District of Tokyo, with 350 AXN TV subscribers attending. The event featured a screening of the Golden Globes Awards show, a live music performance by “J-pop” singer Chris Hart, and a screening of LATCB’s destination promotion video. The event offered an opportunity to promote Los Angeles as the entertainment industry capital of the world among a Japanese audience. Guests participated in a sweepstakes offering two business class tickets to Los Angeles provided by American Airlines and a three-night stay at the Intercontinental Hotel Los Angeles Century City at Beverly Hills. LATCB’s logo and banner were strongly featured, and Los Angeles maps and Visitor Guides were distributed, and www.DiscoverLosAngeles.com was featured on the AXN TV website during the week of the Golden Globes Awards. 

LATCB partnered with Chinese international travel tour operator GTA to hold the first Awards for Best LA Hotel Lead Generator in January 2014. LATCB and GTA created the program to recognize Chinese travel and tour companies that bring the most Chinese visitors to stay in Los Angeles TMD (Tourism Marketing District) hotels. The two winners, CYTS Vacation Travel Branch and Flying Country International Business Group, were presented an award at the event. The campaign has increased the number of rooms booked in Los Angeles TMD hotels for Chinese visitors by 14%. Los Angeles is now ranked as GTA’s No. 1 U.S. destination in terms of hotel bookings. 

SNAP.POST.WIN PHOTO CONTEST

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"105207","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"385","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"480"}}]]To celebrate Awards Season in Los Angeles and promote LA’s title as entertainment capital of the world, LATCB created a SNAP.POST.WIN photo contest. Participants were encouraged to get creative in visually representing how LA inspired them, whether it was a shot of palm trees, hands in fresh cement, or a TV or film production location. The grand prize included VIP Red-Carpet Access to the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards for two with a backstage tour and dinner at the star-studded awards gala, three-night luxury accommodations at Loews Hollywood Hotel, and a round-trip flight for two to Los Angeles. The contest received over 1,000 entries via #RedCarpetLA. Snap.Post.Win. was promoted in New York on WPIX, in Los Angeles on KTLA, in Chicago on WGN, in Seattle on KCPQ, in Sacramento on KTXL, in San Diego on KSWB, in Denver on KWGN and internationally on Channel 9 “Mornings” in Australia.

To celebrate Awards Season in Los Angeles, LATCB created a Screen Actors Guild Awards® (SAG Awards®) themed contest. Visitors to our discoverLosAngeles.com website could enter to win a glimpse into Los Angeles’ star-studded excitement. The grand prize for five winners and their guests was a VIP trip for two to LA complete with VIP bleacher seats at the SAG Awards to see the stars on the red carpet up close; three-night accommodations at Hotel Angeleno; a round-trip flight to Los Angeles courtesy of American Airlines or round-trip Amtrak tickets on the scenic Coast Starlight (for California based-winners); and tickets to the Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour. The contest drew more than 400 entries. Media coverage included Jaunted (105,548 unique monthly viewers), Variety (374,920 unique monthly viewers), NBC 4 (365,277 unique monthly viewers), Examiner.com (11,826,779 unique monthly viewers), Out Traveler.com  (1,985 unique monthly viewers), and more. 

Patina Catering in partnership with dineLA was the exclusive caterer of the 2014 Critics’ Choice Movie Awards dinner. At the live-broadcast awards show dinner at Barker Hanger in Santa Monica, 1,000 VIPs enjoyed a Los Angeles-inspired menu created by Patina Chef and Founder Joachim Splichal just for the Critics’ Choice Awards. As a result of LATCB’s Award Season partnership with KTLA host Sam Rubin and Patina Catering, dineLA was featured in the Critics' Choice Program, at each place-setting at the Awards Dinner, and on the KTLA Morning News in a segment previewing the Patina dinner at the Critics' Choice Awards. The clip delivered an equivalent ad value of $51,896, with a viewership of 119,708. To see the clip, click here.

The PR Team hosted a FAM trip with international journalists from major Canadian, British, Brazilian and American publications during the height of LA’s Awards Season to generate stories highlighting the destination’s most glamorous time of year. The publications included Style at Home Magazine (circulation: 230,041); Elle Canada (circulation: 131,000); Fashion Foie Gras website; London Evening Standard (circulation: 700,000); Capricho-Brazil (circulation: 160,000); and InStyle Australia (circulation: 1,810,539). The Awards Season-themed FAM highlighted hotels, dining, nightlife, shopping, spa treatments and wellness trends in West Hollywood, the Sunset Strip, Downtown and Hollywood. 

The PR Team organized a FAM (familiarization) trip in partnership with British Airways to bring a group of journalists from Middle Eastern publications to tour Los Angeles area attractions, Jan. 26-30, 2014. The journalists write for publications including Asharq Al-Awsat (an Arabic international newspaper based in London), Arab News (an English language daily newspaper based in Saudi Arabia), Sayidaty (a weekly Arabic and a monthly English language women's magazine published in both Dubai and Beirut and distributed throughout the Middle East), Al Watan-Saudi Arabia (a daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia, also published in London, New York and Cairo, Egypt), Kuwait Times (the first English-language daily newspaper in the Persian Gulf region, based in Kuwait), and Al Watan-Kuwait (an Arabic language daily newspaper based in Kuwait). The group visited Universal Studios Hollywood, toured the new Tom Bradley International Terminal, explored luxury shopping and fine dining in Beverly Hills, nightlife in Hollywood, and visited the Hollywood Sign, Getty Center, Natural History Museum, and the Space Shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center. 

LATCB’s Car Free LA program, a series of self-guided itineraries created to offer visitors the chance to experience LA’s hidden gems, via bicycle, walking and public transit, continue to generate media coverage for the destination, most recently on lifestyle website Sheknows.com. The article delivered an equivalent ad value of $52,805, and reached the website’s 5.7 million unique monthly visitors. To see the article click here.