Just last month, The Wall Street Journal listed Providence as one of the top 10 next hot travel spots worldwide – along with destinations as diverse as Honduras, Newfoundland and Montenegro – based on an assessment by travel industry experts. (READ MORE)
But city leaders and tourism officials aren’t taking the buzz for granted. Instead, for the last year, Mayor David N. Cicilline has been working with the Providence Tourism Council, the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, the Providence Foundation and others about “branding” the city.
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Cicilline asked Jack McConnell, chair of the tourism council, to lead a search for a national-level marketing firm to run the project, for which the city has allocated $75,000 generated by the city’s share of the hotel tax.
McConnell said the council issued a request for proposals six months ago, and “we unanimously chose” North Star of Nashville, Tenn. “The company has experience branding municipalities,” he noted.
North Star has branded more than 80 destinations and municipalities since it was founded in 2000. In fact, branding communities is all the company does, according to CEO Don McEachern.
Two months ago, a team from North Star visited the city and took sightseeing tours, experienced “WaterFire Providence” and interviewed stakeholders, residents and business owners. The group also visited Newport and Boston to interview people there about their perceptions of Providence.
“We’re right in the middle of the research,” McEachern said. “That takes four to five months.”
The next step is to distill the information and look for commonalities, then come back with a strategic platform for the brand, he said. It has to be general enough that all entities can use the platform to market the city to potential tourists and businesses, but specific enough to highlight what is unique about the city.
“The real key is trying to come up with a unified way to talk about the assets of our city,” McConnell said. “What we don’t want is a cool tag line.”
For North Star, that’s the real challenge. McEachern said the goal is to develop a brand that “comes from the true nature” of who the city’s residents, businesses, agencies and nonprofits are. “The platform, they should wear it like a second skin.”
The Providence Tourism Council hired Kibbe Reilly of Providence-based Reilly Consulting Associates Inc. to manage the branding project on a part-time basis. Reilly is making sure people fill out and return a three-page survey developed by North Star.
“It is asking people from various pockets of the Providence community … what we can do to be better at economic development, what we can do to be better at tourism,” she said.
Reilly compiled the list of contacts from government, universities, hotels, arts organizations and others in the private sector to fill out the survey because “they are the ones who will embrace all of this and get the message out,” she said.
Rhoades Alderson, communications director for the city, said the branding platform will have a strong economic development message.
“We’re hoping it’s compelling to entrepreneurs,” he said.
And the city is relying on state agencies such as the R.I. Economic Development Corporation to disseminate the message as well.
“They are supportive of this work, too,” Alderson said. “There’s power when everybody is saying something similar … it’s about, over time, building up this image of the city that’s really powerful.” •
