Blain Rethmeier joined the U.S. Travel Association last year as senior vice president for public affairs and government relations. He talked with news editor Bill Poling about the association's 2012 "Vote Travel" campaign.
Q: What exactly is the Vote Travel campaign?
A: We believe that the 2012 campaign season provides the U.S. Travel Association with a prime opportunity to tout the enormous contributions that the travel industry delivers to the country. Through our lobbying and our advocacy efforts, we plan to communicate the significant impact of our industry to policymakers and those running for office and also use this as a platform to engage the industry.
There are a number of opportunities throughout the year, one of them being Travel and Tourism Week, where we seek to put travel on the map and showcase the power of our industry, and make policymakers recognize that this is a $1.8 trillion industry that supports 14 million American jobs and that our views and our policy priorities are important.
Q: How does this differ from what U.S. Travel has been doing all along in terms of educating government and the public about the economic impact of travel?
A: This is really complementary to all of U.S. Travel's previous efforts, and we plan to announce in March our five-point plan that will have a lot of similarities to a lot of our policy priorities of years past.
Q: You've said you intend to have a "significant presence" at the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions. What exactly will you be doing?
A: We believe that the conventions in Charlotte and Tampa will provide our industry a unique opportunity in that, for two weeks of the year, you'll have thousands of people descending upon these cities and taking part in what our industry provides on a daily basis: meetings and conventions. We hope to have a visual presence so that folks recognize that the travel industry is making [the conventions] possible. We are also hoping to go into those cities in advance of the conventions ... and provide a sort of back-of-the house tour of what goes into putting on a convention.
Q: So your interest in the conventions is not so much the political process but in their economic impact on the communities?
A: Yes. I think it's showcasing the economic impact on those communities. But we hope by then to have engaged the candidates so that travel becomes part of their platform, as well. We believe that when candidates are out there on the campaign trail talking about things like health care and energy policy, they should also be talking about travel.
Q: After the election, how would you measure the success of this campaign?
A: I think we will measure the success of the campaign by going out and looking at what conversations took place during the course of the year. We feel like we had a turning point in the industry when President Obama went down to Florida and spoke about the importance of travel and having a strong travel economy. We hope that it's not just President Obama talking about travel during his re-election campaign but also the Republican candidates and candidates at the congressional and state level. If they're out there highlighting the benefits of travel, then I think we've accomplished our mission.
Q: Where does the money come from for all this?
A: The primary funding for the campaign is built out of our advocacy budget. We've set aside about $5 million to get out there and tout this campaign.