Get ready for our annual Spring Workshops Series!

Tahiti Tourisme North America (TTNA) is proud to announce the 2008 Workshop dates and locations are now available for download. Please find the links to the corresponding Workshop forms below.

The TTNA Workshop Series has been created to provide training specific to the islands of Tahiti to the travel agent network in North America. It is designed to recruit more travel agents into our Tahiti Tiare Specialist Program, to update existing certified agents within the program, and to allow our partners the opportunity to meet and interact with the US and Canadian travel agent community. It also provides the opportunity for our participating preferred partners to personally explain their respective products to the frontline of the travel industry promoting the islands of Tahiti.

The evening Workshops, which were introduced last year, will be held from 4:30 PM- 8:30 PM in sixteen cities across the United States and Canada. Please join us in extending the invitation below to your travel agent networks, and encouraging agents to enjoy this exciting event following cocktails and hors d’oeuvres.

Please click on the following links to download the corresponding forms:

Invitation for Travel Agents
Workshop Agenda
Collateral Material Requirements
Form for Attending Representatives
Name List for Attending Representatives

The 2008 Tahiti Travel Exchange will be held in November. Once we have confirmed dates for the Tahiti Travel Exchange, we will be notifying all Partners in North America and throughout the islands.

To read about last year’s Tahiti Travel Exchange, held at the Sofitel Tahiti Resort on November 15th, 2007, please click here.

Mark your calendars! The 4th annual SPF 40 event will be held from October 2 to 4, 2008!

SPF 40 is a result of the combined efforts of eight South Pacific National Tourism offices representing the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, and Vanuatu.

This long-awaited event provides a cost-effective and highly focused three-day training event in order to achieve the following objectives:

• Educate North American Tour Operator Reservations Staff
• Educate Retail Travel Agents
• Increase awareness of the wide range of South Pacific tourism products
• Increase awareness of the attractions and diversities of each of the destinations
• Increase selling opportunities for South Pacific product in the North American market
• Build relationships with key North American product personnel and sellers of the South Pacific.

The 2008 Prestige Travel Fair

On January 12th 2008, Prestige Travel held its 21st annual Travel Fair at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas. This event exclusively reunited destination-marketing offices, tourism boards and preferred vendors.

Prestige Travel and Cruises is part of the American Express Travel representative network and is very well represented in the greater Las Vegas area.

Traffic during this event was steady due to a great booth location. In addition, a good interest level was noted amongst potential honeymooners and consumers who had already been to Tahiti. The consumers also mentioned their wish to return to our islands in the near future.

Classic Vacation Product Showcases

Tahiti Tourisme North America and Air Tahiti Nui participated in six of the Classic Vacation’s showcases. Leila Laille attended two events, held on January 22nd in Beverly Hills and on January 23rd in Newport Beach, CA.

The tradeshow allowed Classic Vacations the opportunity to present their latest products. Both events, held in high-end hotels, noted a good level of traffic. The exhibitors included their preferred vendors as well as tourism representatives of featured destinations.

LA Times Show

The Adventure in Travel / LA Times Travel Show was held at the Long Beach Convention Center February 9 to 10. The show organizers exceeded their attendance record with over 18,000 visitors. Since the show has outgrown their Long Beach home it will be relocated in 2009 to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The booth traffic was steady to very busy over the two days. We were extremely pleased to have 3 Tahiti based suppliers join us in our booth along with local based suppliers. Partners that participated included: Air Tahiti Nui, Haumana Cruises, Legends Resort Moorea, Aranui, and Maitai Hotels. In addition, we featured brochures and flyers from Island Escapes by Goway, Pearl Resorts, Intercontinental French Polynesia and Caradonna.

Boston Globe Travel Show

The 2008 Boston Globe Travel Show took place from February 22 to 24, 2008. More than 140 leading travel companies and associations participated in this year’s show.

As this event is New England’s largest and most comprehensive travel expo, travel destinations and products from around the world are showcased.

Due to an extreme snow storm, the foot traffic was very slow on the opening day, preventing many travel agents from attending. However, with a slight improvement in the weather the following two days, show traffic also improved.

Although many of the partners could not attend the tradeshow, those that were able to make it showed a good level of interest and recommended Tahiti Tourisme North America to exhibit next year.

Carlson’s 70th Anniversary

On February 28, Carlson celebrated its 70th anniversary at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas with over 4,000 invited guests, including Her Majesty Queen Silva of Sweden; Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and CEO of Nestlé; the Honorable Christine Lagarde, France’s minister of finance and economy; Maya Angelou, poet, author, educator; and Dr. Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum.

A gala was held that evening at Planet Hollywood and was exclusively hosted by Regis Philbin. We are proud to say that O Tahiti E was included in a line-up featuring Tony Bennett, Maria Alexandrova (Soloist in Russia’s Bolshoi Ballet), The Boys Choir of Kenya, Japan’s Taiko Drum Ensemble, China’s Peking Opera, and Paul Potts from the UK’s television series “Britain’s Got Talent” sang two songs for the guests.

New York Times Travel Show

The 2008 New York Times Travel Show took place from February 29 to March 2. At the New York Times Travel Show, visitors can discover every corner of the globe, through hundreds of booths featuring domestic and international destinations, resorts, hotels and adventures.

Despite the $20 admission fee, many consumers attended the show this year. Visitors were very knowledgeable about our destination and our national airline, Air Tahiti Nui. They also demonstrated their wish to visit the islands of Tahiti. However, many noted that they would be waiting until the dollar gains in strength before considering Polynesia.

Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention

The Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention, held from March 10 to 13 2008, had over 1000 exhibitors representing 118 countries; welcoming over 10,000 attendees. The conference began with a State of the Industry panel reporting the current cruise market.

The cruise executives on the State of the Industry panel were “cautiously optimistic”, as highlighted in the daily news source at the 3-day event, Seatrade Today. Opening the panel discussion, Chris Hayman, Chairman of Seatrade Communications, confirmed that 42 ships with 106,000 berths were currently on order, representing a $25 billion investment from the cruise industry.

Discussions with the panel noted that CLIA expects their member lines to carry 12.8 million passengers this year, up from an estimated 12.6 million in 2007, and 12 million in 2006. The panel also noted the fact that cruises are significantly less than land-based vacations, on average, which bode will for Americans.

Panelists from State of Industry included:
• Richard Sasso – MSC Cruises
• Daniel Hanaran – Cruise Lines International / Azamara Cruises & Celebrity Cruises
• Adam Goldstein – Royal Caribbean International
• Colin Veitch – Norwegian Cruise Line
• Stein Kruse – Holland America and Princess Cruises
• Gerald Cahill – Carnival Cruise Lines

Seatrade also held an Upscale Cruising panel with the following executives on Tuesday, March 12:

The focus of this conference was to highlight the expansion of the luxury market. The panelists, listed below, all agreed to confirm that the luxury segment will continue to expand and there was a need to control it. To that end, it was noted that out of the 42 new ships currently on order from 15 different brands, 11 only would be targeted toward the upscale cruising clientele.

Panelists from Upscale Cruising included:

Pam Canover – Seabourne Cruises
Frank Del Rio – Oceana / RSSC
Amerigo Perasso – Silversea Cruises
Larry Pimentel – SeaDream Yacht Charter (also outside Marketing Consultant)
Charles Robertson – American Cruising

The following events are coming soon!

March 29-30:	Adventure In Travel Expo Washington, DC
April 10-13:	Toronto Star Travel Expo
April 11-13:	Atlanta Travel Expo
May	Entire Month of May dedicated to TTNA Workshops
June 3-5:	Incentive Fly Around in Dallas/ Minneapolis/ Toronto
June 10-12:	Incentive Fly Around in St Louis/ Atlanta/ Costa Mesa
June 16-19:	Vacation.com in Las Vegas
June 21-22:	Scuba Show in Long Beach
August 19-20:	Incentive Works in Toronto
September 23-25:	IT & ME in Chicago
September 13-14:	Adventure In Travel Expo Seattle
October 2-4:	SPF 40 - Westin Long Beach
October 22-25:	DEMA in Las Vegas