Trade Sales Activity

In order to keep South Dakota's "Great Faces. Great Places." in front of key trade professionals, the Trade Sales and Marketing team is working diligently this shoulder season to educate and inform business audiences about the diverse South Dakota visitor opportunities.

Shoulder Season Hostings

Journalists from the European market will be hosted throughout the shoulder season in South Dakota. The Trade Sales and Marketing team is hosting international journalists to the Governor’s Buffalo Roundup and to a pre-fam of the area. Additionally, a group of Scandinavian journalists will be hosted to a fall familiarization tour of South Dakota.

The team is also hosting a travel agent fam tour in mid-October which will cover both eastern and western South Dakota. Guests will include those travel agents that were solicited during the spring 2006 blitz trips as well as the top 100 agents from MLT and various AAA agencies from across the nation.

Travel Trade E-Newsletter

Formerly known as the AAA E-Newsletter, the new Travel Trade E-Newsletter will be specifically aimed at travel agents and AAA offices. The e-newsletter will expand its distribution to target travel agents from various travel agencies.

• August Travel Trade e-newsletter (coming soon)
• September Travel Trade e-newsletter
• October Travel Trade e-newsletter

Expanding Travel Agent Database

In an effort to continuously expand to the travel agent market, the Trade Sales and Marketing team is growing the current AAA agent database to include additional AAA offices and travel agents from various agencies.

American Society of Travel Agents Show

As part of the effort to reach more travel agents, the team is attending the largest travel show in the United States, the ASTA show which is also known as “The Trade Show”. This is the first year that South Dakota Tourism will be represented.

RMI Megafam

The Trade Sales and Marketing team will meet the RMI Megafam and present the group with a South Dakota video and information to international tour operators.

NTA Opportunities

South Dakota will host a pre-convention caucus meeting for NTA/ABA members on Aug. 29.

The team will attend NTA and meet with tour operators from across the United States as well as lead a meeting for South Dakota members to cross-sell state-wide opportunities.

The team mailed postcards to NTA tour operators to schedule appointments with South Dakota attendees to coincide with the appointment scheduling opening date. Postcards were also mailed to ABA tour operators to schedule appointments with South Dakota suppliers during an October appointment scheduling date.

Visit our group tour Web site: TourSDakota.com