If you notice an 8-inch-tall, Asian-influenced statue in what seems like a random spot this weekend — word to the wise: pick it up. It could be your ticket to a free night/getaway weekend in Washington, D.C.

Destination D.C. is unleashing some mini-warriors (think Mini Me) in select cities Friday as part of the arrival of China’s terra cotta warrior statues to the National Geographic Museum in the final stop on their U.S. tour.

More than 800 small, terra cotta warrior statues will be placed in high-traffic locations and near media outlets in Baltimore  Friday. Flagged with clever messages, the statues encourage their finders to log on to the Weekend Warriors promotion site for a chance to win a “Golden Warrior” weekend getaway in D.C.

Here’s a sample of the campaign in action Destination D.C. is passing around.

The blockbuster exhibition Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor, opened in D.C. yesterday (Nov. 19) after drawing record crowds in its previous stops. Nearly 100,000 tickets to the show in Washington were purchased prior to the exhibition’s opening — and some weekend dates are fully sold out.

Happy hunting…

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I can’t remember all the times I’ve heard the phrase “do more with less” this year…it has officially been filed under my list of Overused Phrases of 2009. But every once and a while the notion actually works.

This spring, four Baltimore tourism entities announced they were pooling their resources (namely, money) to market the Inner Harbor this summer in a $400,000 campaign called Waterfront Invasion. The Maryland Science Center and the National Aquarium in Baltimore teamed up with Visit Baltimore and the Waterfront Partnership to promote the waterfront, the aquarium’s “Jellies Invasion: Oceans Out of Balance” exhibit and the Science Center’s “Chinasaurs: Dinosaur Dynasty” in a media blitz that hit TV, radio, newspapers and billboards in Washington, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

It was the first time such a collaboration had been attempted for downtown Baltimore tourism.

The result? Attendance numbers at the Science Center and aquarium surpassed projections and hotels benefited from the travel packages. Specifically,
• The ticket upgrade sales for Chinasaurs doubled projected numbers.
• Summer attendance at the aquarium was 13 percent above projections.
• More than 874 room nights booked through Waterfront Invasion packages.
• Waterfront Invasion media coverage reached 23,385,771 people and generated $648,911 in advertising equivalency.

The industry has noticed: the campaign won the Maryland Tourism Council’s Industry Partnership Award at their summit last week and last month it won an Award of Distinction from the International Downtown Association.

This year was such a good experience, tourism officials are considering a repeat performance.

“We are excited about last summer’s results and about proving that collaboration among Baltimore’s cultural attractions and marketing organizations can bring success to all of them,” said Denise Aranoff-Brown, senior director of marketing for the Aquarium. “We are in preliminary talks about how we can collaborate again in the future if the conditions are right, and hope we can bring the Waterfront Invasion back to Baltimore.”

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Or, rather, what public relations folks call “getting your constituency to work for you.” I attended a discussion this morning hosted by the Public Relations Society of America on how marketers are using social networking to promote tourism and the overlying theme was how to make a promotion worth way more than was actually spent on it.

The issue was especially on point as the Maryland Office of Tourism has seen funding cuts over the last few years and agencies say more clients are coming to them asking about how make their dollars go further using social networking.

But, as Tom Rowe of Visit Baltimore put it, ” There’s no such thing as viral content. There’s content and then you cross your fingers.”

So that means you have to come up with a specific idea about your product before you start blasting the Internet with tweets, YouTube videos and Facebook posts about that product, marketers said. (Also on the panel was David Warschawski of Warschawski PR and Margot Amelia of the state tourism office with the Department of Business and Economic Development.)

For example, Warschawski said Visit Norway approached his firm about getting more recognition in the United States. He said they came up with a campaign after doing research that showed how much time Americans spend indoors and dubbed it “Passport to friluftsliv” (pronounced FREE-luft-sleeve). Friluftsliv is a Norwegian word for “open air living.”

The campaign highlighted the country’s outdoor activities, which landed coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Reuters and a feature in the New York Times. All told, Visit Norway has or is scheduled to receive more than 200 million media impressions.

Amelia noted that with the smaller state appropriation, the state office of tourism has upped its  media efforts, and last fiscal year (which ended June 30) the office increased its media placement by 54 percent, a $6.6 million value.

The media placements and campaigns, such as a Maryland Treasures photo contest open to the public (click here to vote for one of the finalists), not only get the product name recognition but get the public involved. And when the people are talking about your product, that’s all sorts of unpaid for advertising (also known as word of mouth).

So, long story short, I’m basically playing right into their hands with this post about tourism marketing and products. But that’s OK — because when you make the subject interesting, its worth spreading the word.

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Capitalizing on its appearance in the new Renee Zellweger movie, “My One and Only,” Baltimore’s Peabody Court Hotel has come out with a romance travel package as a salute to the film.

The movie was released two weeks ago and also stars Kevin Bacon and Chris Noth. The film’s story line is based on George Hamilton’s upbringing by his mother along the Eastern Seaboard during the 1950s. To see a shot of the Peabody in the opening sequence of the preview, click here.

“My One and Only” was filmed in Baltimore last summer.

The Peabody’s package includes accommodations for two in a deluxe corner king room, breakfast via room service or in the hotel’s George’s Bistro, valet parking and a late check-out time (2 p.m.)

Has anyone seen the movie yet? How prominently was the hotel featured?

Who knows how much business this package will really stir up, but I do think it’s indicative of how local business here like being associated with Hollywood and the stars that pass through here.

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Maryland’s tourism industry is outpacing national economic trends, with increases this year in room demand, tax revenue and jobs, the Maryland Office of Tourism officials announced this week.

Here are some of the highlights:

1) Maryland welcomed more than 28 million visitors in 2008 — up from 27.2 million visitors in 2007,

2) Demand for Maryland lodging has inched up for the first six months of 2009 by 0.4 percent, compared with an average 8 percent decline in room demand across the nation, according to Smith Travel Research,

3) Maryland gained 10,000 jobs from June to July this year, which included a gain of 4,400 jobs in leisure and hospitality,

4) Ocean City officials estimate that visitation is up 6.8 percent for the period of Memorial Day through July 31 this year, compared to the same period last year.

“Our growth in visitation, room demand, sales-tax revenue and employment can be attributed to several items: the opening of Gaylord National Resort in Prince George’s County, the best Memorial Day weekend in the past 16 years at Ocean City, and our own regional promotional efforts, which have included social marketing and continuation of the ‘Pretty. Close.’ campaign,” said Margot Amelia, executive director of the Office of Tourism, in a statement.

I believe the real test for Maryland tourism, however will come next year. Along with the Gaylord, the Hilton Convention Center Hotel opened and together they accounted for more than 2,000 new rooms and thousands of square feet of meeting space. Those projects were slated for 2008 and a recession was not going to stall development that late in the game.

Now that those behemoths are out of the way, I’m curious to see how numbers in the upcoming 10 months will compare with this past fiscal year (which ended June 30).

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I was perusing The Baltimore Sun Web site today when an odd banner ad caught my attention (left).

The Minnesota State Fair? I would expect certainly the Virginias, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and maybe even New York to advertise their state fairs in this market. But it’s not like Minnesota is a hop, skip and a jump away. It’s more like a drive to the airport, ride on a plane and a rent a car away.

So I then I thought maybe the state launched a new ad campaign this year where they’re just advertising the heck out of themselves (not that all the way out here would be the best ad buy for them anyway, but it would at least make some sense). But then I saw this quote from the state’s tourism head from earlier this year:

“People will be traveling closer to home this year so we’re focusing our advertising in nearby markets,” said John Edman, director of Explore Minnesota Tourism in May. “This has been a stressful year, and many people will be eager to get away from it all for a while. We’re getting the word out that Minnesota’s a great place to get away to.”

So what gives? Anyone care to take a stab at the reason for the ad?

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A recent issue of Tradeshow Week magazine named Baltimore’s own Tom Noonan as one of the top 16 convention and tourism bureau heads in the country. It’s major recognition from a highly respected convention and meeting industry pub.

Noonan, president and CEO of Visit Baltimore, came here from the Fort Worth, TX tourism bureau in January 2007 and — it seems — has been running on all cylinders since he arrived.

“After Noonan went to work in [Baltimore], its hotel room night bookings jumped from 300,000 (two years ago) to 522,000 (in 2009), and its meetings business increased substantially as well, with double the convention bookings it had in 2004,” Tradeshow Week writes.

The Hilton Convention Center Hotel’s opening one year ago certainly had a lot to do with the increased bookings. But, the magazine says, Noonan’s success is also partly due to a three-city partnership that he and longtime friend David DuBois (head of the Forth Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau) inked with the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau last year.

The partnership allowed for the three cities to share sales resources and offer deals to customers who booked the cities on a rotating basis. (Sacramento backed out of the partnership in May due to state budget cuts, but a new West Coast city is sought.)

Tradeshow Week also cited Noonan’s effort in launching multicultural, GLBT, culinary and cultural initiatives.

You have to admit, Noonan and his company (execs from Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Chicago) are a pretty impressive bunch.

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At a news conference Monday that announced Baltimore’s convention bookings had increased, officials gave a lot of credit to the city’s tourism board for the good news.

Mayor Sheila Dixon said they kept their chins up: “Many of us in this economy and recession tend to think of the glass as half-empty and these people saw it as half-full.”

(On a side note, Mayor Dixon accidentally referred to the social networking site Twitter as “Tweeter” and wore the same black-and-white dress Monday that she did at last year’s room nights announcement. Oops. Not the smoothest of mornings…)

Tom Noonan, president of BACVA, summed it up with this: “We have the right plan with the city’s major hoteliers coming together to make the same decisions.”

It seemed like a lot of grandstanding for a group of people who were tasked by the mayor with the somewhat ambiguous directive of “easing collaboration between the bureau and convention center.”

So I asked economist Anirban Basu about it, and here’s what he had to say:

“One of the challenges of Baltimore in the past has been to attract the participation of the hotel managers,” he said. “That cooperation is very important in trying to put together packages to attract conventions to Baltimore. I think that lack of coordination was one of the motivating factors behind the Convention Center Hotel — it offered the flexibility [sellers] needed to attract and lure conventions.”

“That being said, it is true that having greater coordination between the operators and planners has been a boon to the city,” he added.

How much credit do you think the board should get versus the Hilton? Or, with Baltimore’s boutique hotel package (including Hotels Indigo and Monaco) coming online soon, do they have their work cut out for them this year?

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In case you don’t watch TV or listen to the radio in the Baltimore-Washington region (in which case you’re probably not reading this blog, but I’ll continue), and you’ve missed the massive advertising campaign for Baltimore’s Waterfront Invasion — fear not. The cheap fun to be had is just beginning.

The “invasion” includes events and promotions based on the Chinasaurs: Dinosaur Dynasty and Jellies: Oceans Out of Balance summer exhibits at the Maryland Science Center and National Aquarium respectively.

The events include:

The Waterfront Wiggle Free Concert Series held Saturdays at 4 p.m. at West Shore Park through September 5. Sponsored by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, the series features a variety of bands from steel drums to pirate musicians.

The Waterfront Invasion Free Outdoor Movie Series held Wednesday evenings in July at West Shore Park. Sponsored by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore and ASG Events and Promotions, evenings include a screening of a classic “invasion” movie plus interactive games, activities, snacks and music beginning at 7:30 p.m.

ASG Sports and the Pepsi Bottling Group are presenting Free Youth Sports Clinics in conjunction with the West Shore Park movie series on Wednesday evenings in July from 6:30 until 8 p.m. The series will feature special guest instructors from the Baltimore Blast, Washington Freedom and Baltimore Bayhawks. Space is limited to the first 150 participants, ages 5-14. Registration is on site, the day of the event.

The Summer Live! Concert Series hosted by Harborplace will be on Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m. All performances are free and family friendly at the Harborplace Amphitheater and include a mix of jazz, blue, pop and rock musicians.

Seems like most of these free events are for families or at least not geared toward 20-somethings, younger couples or college students home for the summer or interning in the city. Which isn’t to say that younger couples wouldn’t attend these events for a night out…but those who don’t want to spend their night out with other people’s kids probably will take a pass.

How ’bout just one event for the younger crowd — is that too much to ask?

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In the latest blurring of the line between entertainment and retail (if you watch American Idol/Giant Advertisement for Ford and Coca Cola, you know what I’m talking about), Baltimore’s very own American Visionary Art Museum is shipping pieces to appear in the Fifth Avenue windows of world-renowned retailer Bergdorf Goodman this month.

More than 50 pieces from the museum’s permanent collection will appear from June 26 through July 20 with pink cupcakes by the Lower East Side Girls Club (whose artwork is on permanent display at the museum) to be the first window display.

Other pieces to make the trip will be: Fifi the poodle on the store floor, Andrew Logan’s sculpture of “Divine,” the carved critters of Clyde Jones, whimsical whirligigs by Vollis Simpson, the oversize Angels & Aliens chess pieces by Lyle Estill, the obsessive drawings of Ted Gordon, DeVon Smith’s “World’s First Robot Family,” Judith Scott’s yarn-wrapped sculptures, and more.

You can also contact the museum about tickets for a July 12 trip from Baltimore to see the windows at Bergdorf Goodman, and tour the Lower East Side Girls Club, private collector’s home and an artist studio.

What do you think about the marketing here?  When I think of Bergdorf Goodman, I think money, style and sophistication. When I think of AVAM, I think of quirky and unique. What do you get when you put both those genres together — does it work?

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