TCC Insights

Changing of the Guard for a small country (and the media coverage)

By Carolyn Human, Account Manager

Nearly 6,600 miles from Buffalo, New York is a small country in Central Asia that you’ve probably never heard of called Kyrgyzstan. You may know the country that borders it to the North, Kazakstan, thanks to the Sacha Baron Cohen movie, Borat. Kyrgyzstan is making a name for itself this week with a major uprising and overthrow of the government.

There are a couple of things we can take away from this world event. First of all, you may not realize that the United States has a military base in the capital of the country, Bishkek, which is vital to our operations in Afghanistan. Because of the importance of those operations in the past year, more people have taken notice of the little country.

I would infer that partially because of the military base interest, the media coverage of the events in Kyrgyzstan in the past few days has been incredible. I know this because I’ve been following the “happenings” in Kyrgyzstan since 2004. That’s when my brother was assigned to teach English in a small village called Akman through the Peace Corps and I struggled to find any news updates about the country. One year later there was a revolution and the President was ousted. My family was desperate to find any information on the internet to make sure my brother was in a politically safe area. Our best hope for information was www.eurasianet.org or http://en.ca-news.org/ but we rarely got any pictures and were lucky if the information had been updated every 12 hours.

Some random thoughts between the raindrops…

By Bill Collins, Principal

 Checked off another item on my list of things I had to do in life…and saw Paul McCartney in concert at Washington’s FedEx Field.  With my Beatles-crazy 16-year-old daughter in tow, we luxuriated in almost three hours of the soundtrack of my life: Everything from I Saw Her Standing There to Paperback Writer to Hey Jude to I’m Down (really down!).  Sir Paul, 67, can really bring it and best of all, he obviously loves performing and connecting with his adoring fans.  He truly appreciates the thing the world has with The Beatles and he honors and respects it.

Buffalo. A Great Place to Visit

By Bob Travers, Principal

Several years ago our agency was working with the Buffalo Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) on a marketing campaign that would hopefully attract more tourists to Western New York, primarily the Buffalo area.  We were directed to take a fresh look at understanding visitors to our market, and we conducted research with potential visitors from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Toronto. We found out that people who would come to this area from surrounding major markets in the U.S. think of our area only in terms of visiting Niagara Falls, not Buffalo.  However, prospective tourists from Toronto and Southern Ontario were inclined to visit Buffalo when they had a better understanding of our variety of cultural and historical resources and shopping alternatives, not just Niagara Falls.

The results of this research changed the CVB’s marketing strategy.  Previously their major marketing hook to encourage visitors to Buffalo was a stop at Niagara Falls.  During the last several years, the CVB’s marketing communications has focused on not only landing more events in Buffalo but also using many of our cultural and historical resources to attract more visitors to Buffalo.  This strategy has spearheaded and encouraged many in our community and local government to support investment in Buffalo’s various architectural, historical and cultural assets. While the CVB has received significantly less financial support from Erie County compared to what Convention and Visiting Bureaus receive in other New York State counties and many other markets similar to Buffalo’s size, the CVB along with many local galleries, museums and cultural organizations have made a real difference in the reputation and the benefits of a visit to Buffalo.

Recently, The New York Times picked its “44 Places to Go in 2009” and Buffalo made the list! According to The Times, the 44 destinations feature "this year's most compelling destinations awash in sublime landscapes, cutting-edge art and architecture, gala music festivals and stylish new resorts."

A few weeks ago, my sister (who lives on Long Island), asked me if I could make a recommendation of interesting places to visit in Buffalo. Friends of hers were going to the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake and were going to stay in Buffalo because the cost of a hotel room was a lot less.  I sent an email out to everyone in our company for their suggestions and got a lot of great responses. I guarantee the list will make you an ambassador for both our great city and the Buffalo Niagara region. (And if this list isn’t enough, check out this video for some more endorsements on why you should visit Buffalo).

Rite of Spring

By Jeff Schoenborn, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

There’s little in life that I’m certain of, but two things I know for sure. 

Number one, if you have to fly and don’t have access to private aircraft -- I don’t care how small your carbon footprint is or how many times you voted for Barack Obama last November – you are green with envy.  If the topic comes up and you’re unwilling to admit your jealousy, you might say, “Corporate aircraft are a symbol of the gross wage and class disparity between wealthy CEOs and the average working American, they’re gas-guzzling environmental abominations tearing a hole in the ozone, and there’s no legitimate need for anyone to use them.”  Plenty of people would say they agree with you, but they’re lying.  They’re jealous.

Number two, if you do have the ability to fly corporate, you’d sooner give up a kidney (maybe both) than choose to fly commercial airlines.  To anyone who doesn’t fly corporate, you might say, “it’s an important business tool that allows me to remain highly productive when traveling for the company.  Plus, my board and security personnel require me to use it.”  All true.  For any company that needs to move executives and