Alaska Airlines and Tillamook Creamery Tempt Tourism’s Return With a Wine and Cheese Spread

Wine and cheese aren’t just Pacific Northwest souvenirs: they’re fixtures of the region’s travel itinerary. When you fly into Portland International Airport in Oregon, a blue-and-orange stand teeming with Tillamook cheeses and ice cream awaits in Concourse E. While bottles of Pacific Northwest wine litter the shelves of bars and sandwich shops in the airport’s food courts, passengers also lug wheeled bags and reinforced cardboard cases of wine onto Alaska Airlines flights without incurring baggage fees. Tillamook County Creamery Association representatives hope recent arrivals will make the 85-mile trek over the Coastal Range, past the fragrant pastures of cows guarded by herons—and into their 38,500-square foot facility by the Oregon Coast. Alaska’s state wine association partners in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California waive fees in their tasting rooms to entice visitors to bring a few bottles back home. In both cases, brands and producers built agritourism into their marketing plans—and visitors have bought in one sip and sample at a time. According to the latest Census of Agriculture, U.S. agritourism revenue jumped from $704 million in 2002 to nearly $950 million in 2017. Wineries and vineyards that were included in that data in previous Census installments were omitted in 2017, so actual revenue growth was likely much greater. While agritourism was still just 5.6 percent of farm-related income in 2017, it’s become an effective means of spreading farmer and growers’ products and message to other markets. An image of Flower the cow is one of the connections Tillamook Creamery draws to its owner farmers. Dairy Disneyland The Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA) dairy cooperative represents roughly 80 families of farmers, with 12 farmers sitting on its board of directors. It built a production facility just outside of Tillamook in 1949 and still produces cheese on the site. The TCCA didn’t start inviting the public to see the place until 1979, but had to expand its visitors center by 2,500 square feet in 1985 to accommodate the 600,000 visitors it received each year. The original visitors’ center could’ve kindly been described as a glorified truck stop off Highway 101. It had restrooms, a concourse where you could machine extrude blocks of cheese, a station of self-serve samples, a gift shop, plus a modest food court that scooped out Tillamook ice cream—and used the dairy’s core product for grilled cheese sandwiches and bowls of mac and cheese. While the Oregon Coast has a glut of rock formations, old-growth forests, waterfalls, trails, lighthouses and public beaches, it doesn’t have much in the way of indoor amusements. That’s great if you love nothing more than to hike the sand and switchbacks—and spot summer puffins or winter’s king tides. But if you’ve spent more of your vacation marching through coastal mist than you cared to, you could use more than a pit stop. By 2018, the TCCA was ready to expand its little visitors center and gravel parking lots to something that could more feasibly handle the roughly 1.3 million visitors it came to expect each year. During a walk through the new facility earlier this year with Deanna Hirt, director of guest experience operations at the creamery in Tillamook, she pointed out that the two-story mix of black core-ten steel, cross-laminated timber and triple-paned glass was built to give visitors an idea of what modern agricultural facilities looked like. Designed by Seattle-based architecture firm Olson-Kundig, the Tillamook Creamery displays the ongoing history of the region’s dairy farmers within its walls. An image of Tillamook show cow Flower greets visitors on the way in. A hanging sculpture resembling the 40-pound “mother loaf” blocks of cheese created on site dangles over the stairs to the factory’s observation deck. Photos of farm families past and present adorn the walls, cow hoofprints are sandblasted into the floors and stairs—and images of cows climbing the stairs came from a photo shoot of farmers pulling a cow up a slope. Infographic: Travel Is Back. Here's What Consumers Are Planning for 2022 There’s now an interactive exhibit showing visitors how a modern farm functions and the electronic collars farmers use to monitor cows’ biometric data. Visitors see images and biographical information of the food scientists behind Tillamook’s cheese, ice cream and other products. The factory observation deck now includes infographics specifying what each worker and machine does during the cheesemaking process. The cheese-sampling station is now an island unto itself—and overlooks a gift shop roughly the size of a Whole Foods. Centered around a decommissioned grain feeder, piles of merch are balanced with coolers of yogurt, ice cream pints, Tillabar novelty treats, and various forms of cheese (including “squeaky” cheese curds available only at the Creamery). Moo-dern dairy marketing A sprawling food court still offers grilled cheese and ice cream, but now gives visitors multiple dipping options for their fried curds, root beer floats, curd-laden caesar salads, and sides of tomato soup. There are private tours and tastings of both ice cream and cheeses, including cheddar that’s more than a decade old and sells for roughly $3 an ounce. No longer a pit stop, the Creamery is now an immersive museum of cheese that encourages hashtagged photo ops in its cheese-shaped mini bus in the lobby—and free ice cream giveaways via QR codes (and ensuing sign-up forms) posted in the bathrooms. It isn’t just about making nice with the tourists and getting their money while they’re here: Tillamook uses the creamery to encourage ordering more products online—and patronizing restaurants and shops showcasing Tillamook products in its expanding distribution radius. It’s even begun partnering with local wineries on virtual wine-and-cheese tastings during the pandemic. Tillamook sells ice cream, cheese, yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese and butter, but no fluid milk at both its Tillamook facility and a second production site in Boardman, Oregon. The growth of those products in recent years, compared to the steady decline in U.S. milk consumption, is one of the reasons Tillamook sees opportunity in tourist marketing and eastern expansion. According to Hirt, the company’s ambitions are the reason why the ship in Tillamook’s logo—the Morning Star, which carried goods produced by Tillamook farmers inland in the 1850s—was turned east in 2018 after years of facing west. “That experience of the brand [at the Creamery] is why we have 83% household penetration in the Pacific Northwest,” said Joe Prewett, Tillamook’s executive vice president of brand. “So how can we not wait another 100 years to develop that type of relationship with consumers nationwide? That’s what we’re trying to do—and experience is a big part of it.” Wineries of the Walla Walla Valley in Washington are included among Alaska Airlines' Wine Flies Free campaign. A vintage flight For those who enjoy pairing some wine with their cheese, Alaska Airlines is relaunching its Wine Flies Free program this summer and allowing its Mileage Plan passengers in 32 West Coast cities to check up to a case of wine at no charge. Started in 2007 as a means of getting people to fly to and from Washington’s Tri-Cities region rather than drive, Alaska’s Wine Flies Free promotion spent its first decade promoting wine tourism from fewer than a dozen airports in California and the Pacific Northwest. In 2018, it expanded the program to 18 more cities across California, Washington, Oregon and Idaho. While the pandemic slowed participation a bit, Alaska’s recently added cities and updated its lists of participating wineries to welcome returning passengers. Members of Alaska’s Mileage Plan, which is free to join and requires no additional fees, simply add their membership number to their reservation. Once travelers visit local wineries, pack up to 12 bottles in a case or box lined with packing material (don’t just bring your box from Trader Joe’s: many wineries will either sell or provide sturdier shipping material), they can check it for free at an Alaska ticket counter. Alaska’s partnered with The Wine Check to sell Wine Flies Free-branded luggage to travelers who might make frequent use of the program. Jean Carlon, who runs Alaska’s Wine Flies Free program, says the airline is expecting more participation from travelers in 2022 as states ease pandemic restrictions. As a result, Thompson and Alaska are headed to wine events including Savor Idaho in June and Passport to Pinot in July. “Wine tourism has started to pick up a little more than other kinds of tourism, because a lot of it is outside in the vineyard and it feels like an outdoor vacation without being a strenuous outdoor vacation,” Carlon said. “You're out and you're either driving between wineries in your car as part of a small tour.” There’s a little bit more incentive for passengers visiting Idaho, Oregon, or Washington, as participating wineries there will waive tasting fees once they see a traveler’s boarding pass for a flight within 10 days of their winery visit. The Washington State Wine Commission recently updated its website and app to include the “Alaska Air Promo” as a toggle on its state wine map. This allowed the organization to refresh its list of participants and prepare for the upcoming summer travel season. “Wineries are really excited that this program is sort of relaunching,” said Heather Bradshaw, communications director for the Washington State Wine Commission. “Because I think that it's a great way to give tourists, who are perhaps coming into wine country for something else, an incentive to check out our wineries.” Visitors to Dunham Cellars near Walla Walla, Washington's airport can have tasting fees waived through an Alaska Airlines program. Substantial souvenirs In an industrial park adjacent to Walla Walla Regional Airport in wine-soaked Walla Walla, Washington, more than a dozen winemakers offer tastings and sell bottles. Among them, in an unassuming beige metal building resembling a small hangar, sits Dunham Cellars. Inside, the corrugated steel yields to a wood-paneled tasting room with long tables for groups, cozier chairs for families, furnishing made of barrel staves, chandeliers and a large tree fashioned from wine bottles. Wines range from a $20 riesling or red blend to a $58 cabernet sauvignon. Leanne Bellncula spent several years working at wineries in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and now serves as Dunham’s tasting room manager. She hands visitors pocket maps of the region, detailing the prehistoric Missoula floods that created the Columbia River Gorge and a terroir similar to French wine regions at a similar latitude. On the other side, there’s a map of Washington State’s 19 viticultural areas responsible for its wine grapes. When Alaska Mileage Club visitors come to Dunham just before one of the airport’s two Alaska Airlines flights to Seattle each day, Belincula lets them taste the winery’s lineup free of charge. While travelers still have to pay for a shipping box, it’s far less than the cost of shipping with none of the wait. “I definitely have found it's a great perk for driving traffic to the Pacific Northwest wineries,” Bellncula said. “ It's an easy upsell for us in the tasting room to encourage people to buy more wine and, hey, you can take it with you right now: Instant gratification.” Tillamook Market lets visitors to Portland International Airport sample and take home the dairy co-op's products. From pastures to departures During the summer of 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic and a steep dropoff in air travel, Tillamook opened a market in Portland International Airport’s then-new Concourse E. It offers a somewhat more abbreviated ice cream and cheese selection than that found at the Creamery, but a somewhat more expansive food menu that adds chicken sandwiches, tomato melts and cold brew affogatos to its grilled and fried cheese staples. “The dairy Disney World called the Creamery is clearly a lot of family and connections and brand building,” said Sue Kapllani, Tillamook’s vice president of brand marketing. “So we're like, gosh, how can we bring that to the airport?” The market offers not only Tillamook merchandise, but insulated bags for bringing Tillamook cheeses back home as carry-on items and insulated bowls for in-flight ice cream. Tillamook’s initial data from the Market found that 52% of the travelers are from “frontier markets” where Tillamook has focused expansion efforts. Within its first year of operation, the Market drove 6 million social media impressions and 150 engagements. Later this summer, Tillamook has plans to open its PDX Play Area, a 608-square-foot interactive playground, just down the concourse from the market. With the airport’s last play space sacrificed to renovations, Tillamook’s new facility will include a climbing area leading to the top of a life-sized, retrofitted Tillamook VW delivery bus and a slide down. It will be accompanied by a 15-foot mural featuring Tillamook icons and locations that tell visitors more about the brand’s home in Tillamook and Boardman. It will also include QR codes offering coupons for the market. https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/tourism-campaign-wants-to-make-greekend-getaways-a-thing/ It could be argued that Tillamook doesn’t need any of this: its products are now available nationwide in Costco, Walmart, Target and Kroger stores and the brand has significant social and traditional marketing resources behind it. But with the brand so closely tied to its farm cooperative and Tillamook County base of operations, the creamery and the market at the airport pointing visitors in its direction play a key role in sharing Tillamook’s marketing narrative with visitors. “It's our origin story: As we've expanded, we've evolved, but what we've never done is forget our farmer values, our Oregon roots, and—most importantly—the flavor and taste credentials that our consumers expect to see at scale,” Kapllani said. “Farmers are no longer the only thing that represent us. But they are a unique part of our origin story that we are proud of.”