The Case
Houston had an image problem. The fourth-largest city in the U.S., the Texas seaport was seen as an oil and cow town, a place to do business, home to a world-class medical
center and great shopping - but certainly not a family vacation destination. "A lot of people don't understand we have a lot of pleasures here, too," says Sylvia Cavazos, director
of the Houston Image Group, the nonprofit agency tasked with burnishing the city's reputation.
The agency, funded with private and public monies and answering to both groups, was determined to increase Houston's share of mind as a potential vacation spot. In particular,
it wanted to pursue tourists from south of the border - the city already played host to more than 900,000 legal Mexican visitors each year, making that country its biggest
international feeder market.
For several years, HIG tried to handle the city's image campaign itself, going so far as to operate an office with a lone representative in Mexico City. But the lack of control
and cost-intensive nature of running a standalone office led the agency to close the bureau and solicit bids from PR firms for the assignment. Ten firms bid on the business; in
August 1999, Fleishman-Hillard Mexico won the contract.
On a Jet Plane
Chicago, New York and San Francisco have songs about themselves. Miami was the setting for a hot TV show, while Las Vegas has its casinos. Even San Antonio is known for
something funky, its music and its bats. Houston wanted to find a way to carve off some of their travel business.
The FHM team pursued several different tracks. First, it came up with a slogan - Piensa en Houston, Houston piensa en ti ("Think of Houston, Houston thinks of you"). "That's
one of the things we're pleased about," Cavazos gushes. "It's something that people will like...It's much more romantic in Spanish."
The account team began to actively court the travel industry throughout Mexico, concentrating at first on the major cities where Continental Airlines flys nonstop to and from
Houston, such as Chihuahua, Guadalajara and Monterrey. They arranged meetings with the largest travel agencies in each city to talk up Houston's attractions and benefits. "Most of
them were really happy to see us, because not a lot of people do this, give them presentations," Rice says. Cavazos - a former PR executive herself, with Hill & Knowlton -
estimates that FHM visited hundreds, if not thousands, of travel offices throughout the country. They also organized visits to the 50 largest companies in Mexico. "These big
companies are some that are generating the most visits to Houston," Rice explains.
At all of the meetings, the agency team probed their hosts' familiarity with Houston, then talked up the attractions they did not know about. The team had promotional
literature to distribute for different sites, all translated into Spanish, including the city's glossy tourism magazine.
The PR firm also worked with the travel industry to include Houston in its "fam" (short for familiarization) tours. In these, travel agents visit en masse, seeing the sights,
staying in the hotels and eating in the restaurants so they can return and make recommendations to their clients. The agency arranged for a fam tour for Houston's Texaco Grand
Prix auto race, for instance. "It's a big sport in Mexico," Rice notes. There are other special events throughout the year that FMH used to generate interest in Houston as a
vacation destination, such as the city's indoor rodeo. "We do have the cowboy experience for six weeks," Rice laughs.
Media relations also served as a cornerstone for the PR program, with the team peppering the local media with press releases once or twice a month. As for tracking media
coverage, Rice says FHM assigned a dollar value to editorial space - so many inches in a story being equal to an ad of the same size. "We got 10 times more than they paid us,"
Rice says. Cavazos agrees the media coverage has been outstanding.
The agency held a breakfast and a gala dinner to thank the travel agencies it worked with over the past year. Rice takes pains to make sure they continue to be well informed.
"We keep them up to date by email, through a directory of agencies, and a monthly calendar of what's going on in Houston," she says.
Prospects Continue to Brighten
As the year-long contract wound down, HIG decided to continue the PR program and keep FHM as agency of record. Normally the nonprofit hires an agency for a specific project -
when city leaders traveled to Brazil for business development, HIG engaged Hill & Knowlton to promote the trip and handle media relations for the politicians, for instance.
But promoting Houston needs to be an ongoing program. "We don't have a lot of money [for advertising], so we do PR" Cavazos says of the decision.
Rice is looking forward to the second year of the tourism promotion, to make use of what the account team has learned so far. "Travel is much more complicated than it seems,"
she says. "I'm not just talking about agencies, I'm talking about in-plants (internal travel departments) and consumers... There are a lot of audiences you have to communicate
to."
The agency plans to build on media contacts in the upcoming year and to expand the number of fam trips. "I also want to do joint PR with some of the [travel] agencies that sell
Houston the best," Rice says.
(Rice, 011-525/540-6031; Cavazos, 713/437-5237)
Travel's Top Hot Spots
In February, a survey of the members of the American Society of Travel Agents identified the top U.S. destination cities for 2000 and beyond. Houston, at least this year,
didn't make the cut:
1. Las Vegas
2. Orlando
3. Hawaii
4. Branson, Mo.
5. Biloxi, Miss.
6. Alaska
7. Florida
8. Seattle
9. Mississippi*
9. New Orleans*
9. Santa Fe*
* These all tied for the last spot on the list.
Fleishman-Hillard Mexico
Founded: 1995
HQ: Mexico City
Employees: 25
Key Players: Theresa Rice, account supervisor; Silvia Pineda, marketing
communications; Erika Eyl, former account manager (now with Fleishman-Hillard
Miami)
Budget: $100,000 contract
Major Clients: McDonald's/Mexico, Softbank,
MTV, Nickelodeon, Yahoo! Mexico.