Travel Agents Tour 10 States in Another Successful Brand USA MegaFam
Eighty travel agents from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland enjoyed majestic and vibrant travel destinations throughout 10 states in the United States during Brand USA’s fourth-annual MegaFam, a large-scale familiarization trip.
With Lufthansa Airlines co-sponsoring the trip, Brand USA welcomed the agents on the September 27 to October 4, 2017 trip with a pre-trip event at the Lufthansa training and conference center in Seeheim-Jugenheim, Germany. The agents then traveled in groups of 10 along one of eight individual U.S. itineraries that spanned Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, or Texas.
“Our MegaFam program – a first for the U.S. travel industry – is one of the most effective ways to promote travel to both urban and rural areas, to destinations and attractions beyond the traditional gateways,” said Chris Thompson, Brand USA’s president and chief executive officer. “And, we know that it’s extremely important for travel agents from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to be familiar with the limitless, diverse range of travel opportunities that exist in the USA.”
“Lufthansa Group greatly values its partnership with Brand USA,” said Jürgen Siebenrock, Lufthansa’s vice-president of sales, home markets and global key-account management. “By virtue of our 420 weekly flights to U.S. cities, we continue to invest in the appeal of the USA for our European customers.”
Travelers from Germany make up a major segment of inbound travel for the U.S. In 2016, two million German travelers traveled to the U.S., ranking Germany as the sixth-largest source market for inbound, international tourism to the U.S. Those visitors spent $8 billion during their U.S. trips.
The exciting destinations that the agents visited included Phoenix and the Grand Canyon in Arizona; Denver and the White River National Forest in Colorado; the beautiful Captive Island, the majestic beaches of Fort Myers and Tampa as well as Orlando in Florida; the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta; breweries in Birmingham, and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville in Alabama; the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum in Pontiac; historic Philadelphia in Pennsylvania; Niagara Falls in New York; the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee; and the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
To qualify for the trip, the agents qualified for the experience by completing designated modules of Brand USA’s online-training package, the USA Discovery Program. They took part in a three-week online raffle of Lufthansa experts to qualify for the lottery to win one of the 80 places for the MegaFam.