A Recap of The Bahamas Weather Conference, by Weber Shandwick

The 12^th annual Bahamas Weather Conference may be one for the history books already, but people are still talking about it, often on the six o’clock news.

The conference which was held April 9-13 at the Westin Grand Bahama Island hosted 104 meteorologists from The Bahamas, U.S. and Canada and 20 expert speakers from NOAA, the National Hurricane Center and academia.  This year’s agenda was coordinated by Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, and included the participation of the NHC’s new director Mr. Bill Read.

While the principal goal of the Bahamas Weather Conference remains the education of broadcast meteorologists on the geography of The Islands Of The Bahamas, awareness raising for the conference and the destination beyond the shores of the country is also a fundamental part of the program.  The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism and this program has been recognized with industry awards for its value as a crisis communications tool,  as an innovative use of broadcast and for its use of technology to broadcast its message.  ( This year’s conference has already been profiled by PR Week ) . The Islands Of The Bahamas has earned the respect of competing tourism organizations for its determination to confront the issue of hurricanes directly and honestly and to create an opportunity to broadcast a positive message from the destination.

Exposure

A measure of the respect the conference commands is that the official April forecast for the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season issued by Dr. William Gray and Dr. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University was made as part of the conference on April 9.  This forecast was distributed via satellite and www.bahamaswxconference.com and resulted in onsite interviews with Your World with Neil Cavuto (FOX News), The Weather Channel, local network affiliates, radio and the Wall Street Journal.

This year 80 of the attendees took advantage of the television production support that was available on the beach at The Westin.  In two days of the conference 83 live shots were broadcast to key U.S. markets and nationally across the U.S. and Canada bringing the sunny sky and beautiful beach of Grand Bahama Island home to viewers.  These segments have been rebroadcast across at all times of day resulting in 147 broadcast hits to date.  As delegates to the conference return to their home stations the conversation often continues with discussion of “what a difficult assignment” they have completed.

We estimate that through the Bahamas Weather Conference the destination reached an audience of 10 million people in just two days.  The estimated advertising equivalency of this effort is approximately $1.8 million dollars.

Three years ago the Bahamas Weather Conference created a Video On Demand web site to broaden the reach of the conference and its key messages.  Traffic to the site for the 2008 conference experienced a 100 percent increase over that of the 2007 conference.  Enhanced video sharing tools also linked the site (and coverage of the conference) to blogs and web sites including The Washington Post and USA Today.  

Additionally, we note this year that though the video segments produced at the conference are strictly tourism oriented, participants are beginning to produce fun material specifically for their home station web casts.  Again, the internet is expanding the possibilities for exposure for the destination.

News Channel 5 KRGV Weather Report

The Bahamas and Grand Bahama Island past the 200 mark, but the real measure of value for this endeavor cannot be limited to advertising value.  The Bahamas Weather Conference results in positive exposure for the destination; respect for the country’s position as a tourism industry leader; and more accurate reporting.  The sum of all this amounts to something that money really can’t buy.

Congratulations on another successful Bahamas Weather Conference.

Valerie Edmonds
Account Supervisor
Weber Shandwick