Marriott launches "Spirit of Aloha" experiential marketing tour.

Marriott Hawaii announces the launch of their 2010 mobile event road show set to visit 12 cities called the "Spirit of Aloha". The tour starts in Scottsdale, Arizona which begins the 5,530-mile journey aboard the 45-foot-long tour bus emblazoned with tropical images of Hawaii that will visit 11 additional U.S. cities through February 12. Texas and then to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, St. Louis, Omaha, Denver and Salt Lake City with a final two-day stop in Los Angeles, Feb. 11-12. Tour partners are Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau and Hawaiian Airlines. This trip follows two successful promotional tours on the U.S. mainland and Japan last year.

The experiential marketing objective is to encourage visits to the islands, the traveling road show will bring the sights and sounds of Hawaii to the mainland. Traveling on the bus will be Marriott Resorts Hawaii leaders, including general managers and directors of sales and marketing from each of its resort hotels, who will visit with travel partners, groups and media, while performers from the Polynesian Cultural Center will provide Hawaiian entertainment at each stop. Traveling on the bus will be Marriott Resorts Hawaii leaders, including general managers and directors of sales and marketing from each of its resort hotels, who will visit with travel partners, groups and media. Performers from the Polynesian Cultural Center will provide Hawaiian entertainment at each stop.

Marriott Resorts Hawaii will provide continuous updates from the road on Twitter and Facebook and a blog on the Marriott Hawaii Web site. "Our aim is to encourage folks to travel to the Hawaiian Islands in the coming year and stay at one of our beautiful Marriott Resorts on Kauai, Oahu, Maui and Hawaii's Big Island," said Chris Tatum, vice president of Marriott International -- North Asia, Hawaii and South Pacific, in a statement. "Hawaii is already popular across the U.S. -- our goal is simply to raise the level of awareness and give people the extra nudge to come see us." This is the third bus tour Marriott has conducted in the U.S. The company also conducted a similar tour last October in Japan. Despite these efforts, Hawaii's tourism has declined, sorely affecting the state's economy.

Excited about visiting the tour when it comes to Los Angeles I could not find exact tour stops after visiting Marriott's corporate website, Facebook fanpage and Twitter. I also noticed others requesting information with no response back from Marriott as of this posting. The Twitter updates are not conversational in context just updates as they stated.

Recommendations: (These are just a few Conversation Marketing strategies that can be developed when you engage in an experiential marketing tour).

• Create a separate page on the website (with links to Facebook Fanpage and Twitter) for this mobile road show including tour stop exact locations, promotion announcements and VIP Marriott rewards program participant tours.


• Video - create a Youtube channel and create spots.


• Pre-marketing email campaign focused on tour stops. As a Marriott Rewards program participant I did not receive any marketing on this tour.
• Invite selected tour stop participants to Twitter, Facebook and blog about their experience.

What would you suggest?