Sheila's Guide To The Good Stuff

While in Honolulu recently for the Hawaii Social Media Summit, I picked up a copy of Pacific Edge Magazine and read a blurb about the growing number of pop-up (mobile or temporary) businesses, including Hawaii’s local ice pop maker OnoPops.

The word ono means “delicious” in Hawaiian.

The pop makers pride themselves on only using ingredients found in the Hawaiian Islands, and they combine them in unusual but yummily imaginative ways to make distinctive OnoPops flavors.

Starfruit Lemongrass.

Dark Chocolate Chinese Five Spice.

Butter Mochi.

Crackseed Lemon Peel.

Ume-Thai Basil.

The quest was on to find these things while we were in Hawaii, but they are usually sold from the OnoPops truck at local farmer’s markets, and I never could seem to organize my schedule to arrive at the right time. I was only in Hawaii for a week, and I HAD to try them.

When my daughter (who traveled with me) and I found a Whole Foods Market in Kailua on the windward side of Oahu, I thought surely we’d score some, but no luck. As we walked out into the store parking lot, however, we saw a group of people all eating some sort of ice pops. Could it be….the elusive object of our desire?

“Excuse me, but are those OnoPops y’all have?” I asked (“y’all” translates quite well from Texas to Hawaii.)

“Yes, they are, and they are AWESOME.” said one woman. Most of the group was pretty drunk, but I didn’t care as long as they stayed coherent and answered questions.

“Where’d you get ‘em?” I asked. Everyone pointed at the Whole Foods building we’d just left; apparently the OnoPops were in a little portable freezer near the pizza deli.

We turned right around, went back in and loaded up.

I can tell you that the strawberry ones in the photo were super-creamy, sweet and rich. The strawberries are from Kula Country Farms in Maui, and the goat cheese is from …. I kid you not …. Surfing Goat Dairy on the slopes of Maui’s Haleakala volcano.

The biggest challenge besides finding them is trying to eat two before they melt, because you can’t only have one.

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First in a blog post series for the get-revved-up week between Christmas and New Year’s

Here’s a way to reach fans of your destination who live far away, but still want to connect even when they can’t visit …. tell them how to find and listen to your hometown radio stations that stream online.

People who enjoy familiar music, a long-time DJ’s voice or a particular show may not even know that they can now hear those sounds on the web, even when their regular radio is nowhere near the station’s terrestrial broadcast tower.

For example, my at-home radio is always tuned to FM 89.5 KMFA in Austin. It’s a public, listener-supported station that plays classical music in Central Texas. Unlike KUT, the other public station in town, KMFA does not have standard NPR fare like All Things Considered. It simply provides a wide variety of classical music, 24 hours a day. I love it.

When I’m far away from home in a hotel room, I do look for local stations, but even in music-rich places like New Orleans I seem to have a heck of a time finding them (or getting the hotel’s bedside clock radio to pick them up.) Often I default to playing KMFA in my room through my laptop, which is a nice homey Austin touch on a busy morning when I’m prepping to speak at a conference, for example.

Rev-up recommendation for you:

**  Do a little destination marketing with radio in 2012.

—->>  Write up a blog post that tells visitors where to find 3-4 of your best local radio stations online. Include their AM and/or FM station numbers for people to dial into when they are physically in town. Link to each of the station websites in your post.

—->>  Put a link to the post in a Facebook Page update. Tag the radio stations in your update.

—->>  Tweet the link to your post 2-3 times on Twitter, over a few days, at different times. Include the station or DJ Twitter handles.

—->>  Summarize the post as part of your email newsletter.

—->>  Ask the stations if your CVB or DMO can be a guest on any of the shows that cover local events or festivals, then make sure that your blog/Facebook Page/tweets/newsletter let people know when to tune in to hear you talk up your town. Shoot a short video of you on the air, and put that on YouTube, with a link back to your blog post in the video description.

Can you think of any other way to use radio to connect with visitors?

Oh, and I did finally find a great New Orleans station that streams local music and shows:  WWOZ online, or dial up 90.7 FM when you’re there.

Want more help and training in social communications, tourism and hospitality?  That’s why we started Tourism Currents.

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If you are a blogger, here is how you develop a professional reputation to catch the eye of tourism and hospitality organizations that offer press trips and fam (familiarization) tours….

Start in your own town.

Yes, start with the assets right under your nose.

Not coincidentally, this is precisely the sort of advice that new writers get when they ask how to get published in the big national print glossies/magazines – “Get something in your local publications and newspapers before you get the big head about your stuff belonging in the New York Times.”

What was my first big break in a national magazine? When National Geographic Traveler accepted my article proposal about a historic highway that was only a few miles from my Florida home.

I watch with some bemusement as newish bloggers wonder aloud in Facebook Groups and at conferences about how to get invited on press trips (which are work, not play, and come with their own drawbacks and requirements) and then when I ask the person if he or she has approached tourism assets in their backyard, they usually have not.

So here it is, bloggers:  reach out to your own local CVB (Convention and Visitor’s Bureau) or Tourist Office – town, regional and/or state or province – and see if they’d be interested in a “Like a Local” series on your blog, for example. The same thing might work with a nearby heritage highway or wine, microbrewery or quilt trail.  Even pet bloggers could do a series for their CVB on dog parks and leash-free play areas; visitors to your destination need that information if they travel with pets.

Don’t sit passively by the phone or in your email IN box, waiting for things to magically happen. Craft a proposal about why someone’s support of your travels might be beneficial to them, and pitch it. Your town’s CVB may not even know you exist. Pick up the phone or even go by the Visitor’s Center in person. You have a big advantage over a stranger, especially if they’ve never worked with a blogger before.

Starting out, you won’t get and don’t need press trips to far-flung places. Build a base first: experience, content and reliability. Demonstrate your chops in Des Moines before worrying about Rio de Janeiro.

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It’s the kind of unpretentious downtown diner where the owner pauses at the table of a longtime customer, and they commiserate about how their bum shoulders keep them from playing tennis as much as they’d like.

The kind of place where the coffee in your cup never seems to drop below the midpoint of the mug before the waitress is standing there with a carafe saying, “Wouldja like a refill?”

The kind of place that displays pies behind a long counter, in a rack with mirrored shelves so you can see that yes, the meringue really IS that high.

The kind of place that doesn’t list pecans as one of the options for your homemade waffle, but hey, this is Texas, so all you have to do is ask for them. The waitress will say, “Sure, honey.”

The kind of place that serves ice tea in pebbled plastic glasses the size of a small bucket.

It’s the Paris Coffee Shop in Fort Worth on West Magnolia and it has zero to do with Paris, France (the original owner’s name was Vic Paris.)

That guy talking tennis with customers and making sure you’re happy with your order? That’s Mike Smith, son of Gregory K. Smith who bought the place from Mr. Paris in 1926.

I love restaurants like this, especially for breakfast….unpretentious joints like Lou Mitchell’s in Chicago or the Brookside Restaurant in Luray, VA or Cookie’s Soul Food Kitchen in minuscule Ames, TX.

Here’s what I found frustrating from a tourism perspective, though – I found out about this place from a Frommer’s guidebook. The Fort Worth CVB does have a Paris Coffee Shop listing, but I had to already know what I was looking for to drill down the restaurant listings for it, and I had to know that the location is something called “Near Southside.”

The CVB descriptive listing for Near Southside? It is blank.

There is a CVB website link under Restaurants, for Distinctive Dining. It’s a page with a bunch of logos, many of which are to chain places like Ruth’s Chris Steak House and P.F. Chang’s. I mean, I’m sure they’re distinctive in some way, but how unique are they to Fort Worth….like the Paris Coffee Shop?

Tourism organizations must help visitors (including those who are not determined research-junkies like I am) to find those eateries that make your town unique and wonderful.

The world needs more pecan waffles and waitresses who say, “Honey.”

Update:  This post is part of WanderFood Wednesday over on the Wanderlust and Lipstick blog – check out today’s post, Mini No-Meat Burgers (in Tijuana, Mexico.)

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Yes, Texans can be annoyingly overconfident, but then again, they used to be a republic unto themselves, so I suppose I can understand that attitude.

There is something to be said for a place that knows what it offers and wears a proud you’ll-only-find-it-here air about themselves.

They also tend to have a shop local mentality (because “our stuff DESERVES to be purchased, you pinhead!”) and they have no interest in looking like everyone else.

Some cities in Texas have a bunch of bodies and buildings but very little personality.

Dallas does not rock my boat, for example, but Fort Worth sure does, and the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan reflects both my current home region’s population boom and its fierce self-preservation instincts.

Have a personality. Stand for something. Support and highlight your local talent and businesses….

Or no one will care about you at all, because you can be found anywhere.

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