CAPITOL Program aimed at luring tourists upstate BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter
The state is pumping nearly $1 million into a fall tourism marketing campaign designed to target people in Toronto and New York City and entice them upstate with discounted air, rail and road travel. As part of Empire State Development Corp.’s reinvigorated “I Love New York” program, Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday the launch of the autumn marketing campaign. Under that initiative, the state has established partnerships with JetBlue Airways, Zipcar and Amtrak. Starting Wednesday, JetBlue started a 72-hour sale featuring $30 base fares on travel from JFK International Airport in New York City to Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester. Travelers can also get $30 worth of free driving on Zipcar rental vehicles. The rental company will also offer reduced fares through Oct. 31. While those two partnerships will mostly benefit western and central New York tourism destinations, Amtrak’s 20 percent discount on rail travel throughout New York could be a boon for the Capital Region, said Dan Murphy, president of the New York State Hospitality and Tourism Association, a Colonie-based trade organization. The discounts will be available through an “I Love New York” discount code. It is open to people from Montreal traveling along Amtrak’s Adirondack service line. “It was very wise of them to reach out and establish these strategic partnerships to build a better pricing structure … to help bring people into upstate,” Murphy said. Although the Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce has aggressively marketed in Montreal, it is not clear whether the discounted Amtrak fares will attract more Canadians to Lake George. A lack of easy access from Amtrak stations to Lake George makes driving there from Montreal easier, said chamber president Luisa Craig-Sherman. “I’m not sure how much of an impact this will have,” she said. To take advantage of the fall campaign, at least 10 Albany County hotels have posted seasonal getaway packages on the “I Love New York” Web site. Some of those participating hotels include the Desmond Hotel and Conference Center, the Howard Johnson Inn and Clarion Hotel. “This is a very short window of opportunity we have in the fall season,” said Michele Vennard, president of the Albany County Convention and Visitors Center. The fall campaign repeats the summer marketing efforts by Saatchi & Saatchi. The state in spring hired the New York City-based Saatchi — one of the world’s largest advertising and marketing agencies — to run the “I Love New York” campaign. Its summer “Get out of Town” promotion will make another run through Toronto and New York City.
Starting Wednesday, JetBlue started a 72-hour sale featuring $30 base fares on travel from JFK International Airport in New York City to Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester.
Good thing they're not offering discounts to people coming up from the city to the capital region, huh? You wouldn't want all those politicians going to Albany to do what we pay them for to save some money on their travel at least one way during the entire year, huh?
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