Tourism advertising fuels development for Travel Alliance Partnership

Nicole Mahoney admits that saying goodbye to the Break the Ice Media identify, an company she launched in 2009, wasn’t simple to do.

After all, the agency was her creation, and the work she and her workforce had finished over time on advertising and public relations campaigns had made an impression for shoppers.

But not lengthy after Mahoney acquired Travel Alliance Partners in 2021, a distinct segment company with deep roots within the journey and tourism business, she wanted to find out how finest to maneuver ahead as one.

A model advisor was employed and, after cautious evaluation, it was decided a merger with preservation of the Travel Alliance Partners identify would finest align the organizations for future development.

“Travel Alliance Partners basically had the travel advisor audience, it had the tour operators, the products,” Mahoney stated. “So we decided to merge the two and rebrand as Travel Alliance Partnership. (TAP)”

That was in 2024 and now, two years later, Travel Alliance Partnership is prospering, tapping into its experience throughout the tourism market to guide collaborative applications whereas bringing numerous companions collectively to drive journey.

The agency earned the highest spot on the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce 2026 MWBE Awards. The listing acknowledges the fastest-growing, privately owned Minority and Women Owned Business Enterprise companies primarily based on greenback and share income development over a three-year interval.

The award was offered on June 11. One day earlier, TAP was acknowledged with 4 PRism Awards for excellence in public relations advertising by the Rochester chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

“That just feels really good and validating, when you have PR peers from another market judging your work,” stated Mahoney, the agency’s CEO. “I feel so good for our team.”

The TAP workforce — which excels working as a completely distant workers — is comprised of 12 full-time workers. All have been with the agency not less than two years, six have been there 10 years and two have been with Mahoney for the reason that first days of Break the Ice Media.

They function with the assumption that collaboration results in success, offering strategic planning, digital promoting and advertising, content material improvement and extra for shoppers that, as Mahoney says, span the tourism ecosystem.

That contains vacation spot advertising organizations; the oldsters answerable for advertising a spot. It additionally contains organizations which can be a part of the tourism business comparable to museums, the humanities, cultural organizations, wineries and breweries.

They additionally work with tour operators and companies that present merchandise to the tourism business; “the products within a destination that make it a place people want to visit,” Mahoney stated.

While Travel Alliance Partnership is the identify folks now know, Break the Ice Media stays the registered company identify.

“I still have that as my personal nod to our history,” Mahoney stated. “It took somewhat bit (to change into accustomed to no extra Break the Ice Media) but it surely wasn’t as arduous as I assumed it will be.

“We’ve been TAP for two full years now and, to be honest, it feels like we’ve been TAP for a decade.”

That’s as a result of the workforce was already specializing in journey and tourism since round 2016, when Mahoney launched her podcast, Destination on the Left. She is closing in on 500 episodes, interviewing quite a lot of folks working in varied sectors of the journey and tourism business.

“It exposes myself, my team and now my audience to people all over the world that are in this industry,” she stated. “That was really the start of our growth trajectory. It allows you to develop an expertise in an area.”

That the Rochester space is the company dwelling for TAP is becoming. This is the kind of space they’re so good at advertising.

“Our focus is more on drive markets,” Mahoney stated. “You take into consideration Rochester, we’re a drive market, so we all know very well easy methods to get folks to second- and third-tier markets, these off-the-beaten-path places.

“That’s where we’re focusing our expertise, although we do understand the international traveler. We have a lot of expertise in understanding the Canadian traveler as well as other markets that come to the United States and are looking for experiences outside of the big cities. We understand how they plan, the second and third trips they might take, and how to market to them.”

The agency is in its fourth yr of a contract with I Love New York, which pushes tourism throughout the state. People know New York City and Niagara Falls. The huge purpose is getting guests to see the remainder of the state.

“It’s thinking about everything in-between,” Mahoney stated. “Part of the I Love New York purpose is to get an enormous share of these New York City guests to discover extra of Upstate.

“That’s where collaboration comes in. You want to be able to work with different partners throughout the entire state. You can’t do it on your own, and that’s really where we hang our hat, is knowing how to make those collaborations work and how to find those collaborative partners.”

They’re additionally including to their portfolio. In late 2024, TAP bought a collaborative model, Haunted History Trail of New York State (hauntedhistorytrail.com). More than 30 counties are collaborating, with greater than 80 places on the path.

TAP will increase this system into Michigan and the long-range purpose is to create a nationwide model.

“It’s another example of how we’re growing creatively through acquisitions and still serving the same industry through different programs,” Mahoney stated. “There’s a huge market for haunted tourism. People travel from all over the world for these experiences.”

While Being No. 1 on the Chamber’s MWBE listing was an honor for TAP, it wasn’t an end-all, be-all vacation spot.

“I tell my team this all the time, we never arrive, we’re never done,” Mahoney stated. “ ‘Oh, we did that, now we can sit back and relax.’ It doesn’t work that way. There’s always another journey to be had.”

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