After almost every punch line, a googly-eyed, sweating Rodney Dangerfield would tug at his tie and utter his famous line, “Awww, I don’t get no respect.”

Seems to me the entire travel and tourism industry could do the same thing. Tourism is a trade that encompasses so many different business sectors but has no single defining industry designation, and therefore, has no real way of demonstrating its value to the greater community.

Check the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and you’ll find listings for Air Transportation; Aircraft-Aerospace Manufacturing; Amusement and Recreation; Fishing, Hunting, and Trapping; Food Preparations and Food Specialties; Hotel and Restaurant; Museums, Art Galleries, and Botanical and Zoological Gardens; and the Railroad Transportation Industries – all listed as separate sectors. And that list doesn’t even include limousines, cruise lines, sporting events, nor all of tourism’s supporting industries such as Legal, Accounting, HR, Real Estate, Retail, etc., etc., etc. Yet every one of those businesses owes some or all of its success to tourism.

Funny how things change in times of trouble, though. Now that BP is dolling out money to companies whose businesses have suffered due to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it seems every business that might have ever received a dollar from a tourist’s wallet has its hand out for relief. Watching the evening news the other day, I saw a gas station owner from Palatka complaining that BP owed him money because tourists have stopped driving down to Florida. Even the Brass Monkey Lounge in Marathon filed a lawsuit against BP for diminished business.

As Judy Sorenson, owner of the bar, said in The Miami Herald, “It‘s still beautiful here, but people aren’t coming because they think the oil is here, even though it isn’t here. That’s killing the Keys.”

Maybe so, Judy; but it ain’t killing bars. The last thing people in the Keys are going to give up is booze. In fact, I’d bet that the worse the situation gets, the more they’ll drink.

Regardless of the economic realities, our tourism industry will keep stoking the economy – providing jobs, generating taxes and showing people the best parts of the United States, all without getting the respect it deserves. It’s so bad that even Rodney Dangerfield used to diss our industry: “Boy, what a hotel that was, why they stole MY towel! Then I asked the bellhop to handle my bag and he fondled my wife.”

I’m tellin’ you, we don’t get no respect.

Besides having a problem with their Deepwater Horizon well spewing oil into the Gulf Stream, BP also seems to have a problem with its executives spewing insensitive statements into the media stream.

First, embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward told a disbelieving press “I’d like to get my life back.” Talk about irony. As the words spilled from his lips, did Hayward even consider the eleven workers who were killed on the oil rig, all the people on the shore who make their livelihoods from the beach and the sea or even the pelicans, manatees and other creatures destined for an oily death?

Then BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg set off another public outcry when he told the world he was frustrated because “we care about the small people.” Of course he was quick to apologize for his gaff and his PR team explained that because Svanberg is from Sweden, English isn’t the chairman’s first language. They also tried some convoluted explanation about the British use of the word “small” which apparently doesn’t have the same meaning as it does in the US.

Pshaw.

Those of you who know me know that one of my favorite pastimes is playing harmonica with my R&B band at bars, festivals, and parties. Often someone will approach us, tell us they’re musicians too and ask if they can sit in with the band. Before long we’re playing Pink Cadillac or Johnny Be Good or some other rock standard with our guest performer singing the lyrics or playing the guitar lead (no, I don’t lend my harmonicas to strangers in bars).

Most of the time the folks who play with us are good, sometimes they’re great and once in a blue moon they’re superstars (remind me to tell you about the time a heavily disguised Van Morrison sang “Born Under A Bad Sign” with us).

But sometimes our guests are not so good. Which is fine, too, because people who try hard and are gracious still have a good time and make it fun for their friends in the audience. It’s the ones who are can’t play and don’t know it that really toast my onions. They’re the angry sorts who insist that the guitar is out of tune, the drummer missed the beat or the band is playing too fast.

Just as Dean Vernon Wormer told Flounder in Animal House, “…drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son,” incompetent AND arrogant is a bad combination whether you’re sitting in with a bar band or running a multi-national oil company. The only difference is when the incompetent and arrogant performers are done playing their songs they get off the stage. We are going to be stuck with BP for a long time coming.

Right now the oil moving inexorably towards our coastline is on everybody’s mind. The media has created the 24-hour news feed, the battle lines have been drawn between BP and the pelicans, and consumers are hanging onto the edges of their seats for the next update.

The consequences of this tragedy, perhaps the largest domestic environmental crises to date, will go on for decades. But what happens when the next great new event pushes the Deepwater Horizon off the front pages? What will be the long-lasting effects to the beachfront tourism industry from Texas to Florida and beyond?

Do you think the issue won’t go away that quickly? When was the last time you were glued to your TV to find out about conditions in Haiti, the Time-Square bomb scare or even health care reform? We Americans have a notoriously short attention span and when the media moves on, we do too.

Of course you know that just because the situation doesn’t make front-page headlines anymore doesn’t mean that everything is better. Far from it. Post earthquake-damaged Haiti is still the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and suffers from every possible ill of poverty, a non-existent infrastructure and aggressively corrupt leadership; it’s just that we’re not so actively involved anymore. Out of sight, out of mind is not just a glib saying; it’s an accurate description of our national attention deficit syndrome.

So maybe the cameras moving on to the next subject will be a good thing for tourism. After all, if pictures of gooey petroleum-soaked seabirds aren’t on our TV screens 24/7, visitors might forget about the oil and rebook their vacations. On the other hand, what happens if oil-fouled beaches are the last things consumers see before the cameras leave and there are no inviting images to change that perception?

As I wrote in my last post, the solution is not to tell people the reasons why they shouldn’t not come but instead to build compelling stories that connect with consumers’ emotions and build desire. I’m still waiting to see those campaigns from the affected destinations. Let’s hope they’re coming soon.

So many gulf coast beach destinations are telling consumers that their beaches AREN’T fouled that I can’t help but wonder how robust their businesses must have been before the oil spill.

As I recall, a prolonged recession, increased competition, reduced consumer confidence and many other reasons had already softened most of the destinations’ business. Why is it then that they feel that by just announcing “We don’t have greasy beaches yet” the consumers will arrive in droves? Since when was telling people the reasons why they shouldn’t not come considered good marketing?

Eat here, our restaurant isn’t dirty.

Drive our car, it’s not unsafe.

Wear our jeans, they don’t make you look fat.

Thanks to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, even most politicians have learned that defending a negative doesn’t work:

“I am not a crook.”

“I did not have sex with that woman.”

Saying “we don’t have oil” or the positive version – issuing “clean-beach guarantees” – is more of the same – telling people why they shouldn’t not come. Instead, thoughtful messaging for the near future (and for the next several months) is critical, particularly in markets that were hurting before anyone ever heard of the Deepwater Horizon.

The good news is that an opportunity actually exists in this crisis that shouldn’t be missed. Resort areas should seize the opportunity to highlight their strongest selling points and not just make the beaches look inviting. Negative perceptions have already been developed even if there isn’t oil on the coast of Florida, yet many tourists pick their destinations for reasons beyond the beach. And with all eyes on the region, now is the perfect time to show those eyes what they’re missing. At least the positive parts.