Post-Hurricane Marketing in the U.S. and Caribbean Puts Tourism Boards to the Test
Photo Credit: Hurricane-ravaged destinations are launching marketing campaigns to try to move past the storms. Pictured are members of the U.S. Coast Guard in Houston after Hurricane Harvey in August. Flickr / Coast Guard News
Skift Take
Marketing campaigns are always a key ingredient in responding to natural disasters, and showing travelers that a destination hasn't completely bottomed out. To get the message out, it also helps to have sufficient funding and resources, which some islands are currently lacking.
Many U.S. and Caribbean destinations this year are doing hurricane damage control in terms of post-storm marketing — something that largely wasn't needed for a significant swath of the region for more than a decade.
Storms such as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria caused an estimated $188 billion or more in damages this year, making 2017 the costliest season on record, according to AccuWeather. The wreckage from the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was also very substantial but didn't reach this year's level.
The region's travel industry and visitor arrivals have also grown considerably over the past dozen years.
The Caribbean had 22.2 million tourist arrivals in 2005 compared with 29 million in 2016, a 30 percent increase. Social channels — which didn't exist or were nascent a dozen years ago – serve to spread both images of the devastation and can be used for marketing purposes, as well.
Hard-hit destinations like the Florida Keys were relatively quick to
