Fresh from a business trip to Maine, state tourism chief Mark Brodeur is pumped.
In Maine, Brodeur, the director of the R.I. Tourism Division at the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, and other tourism officials from around New England hosted 62 international travel writers and tour operators at the ski resort Sunday River late last month.
It was part of Discover New England, a nonprofit partnership between the six New England states that costs Rhode Island $100,000 annually in membership fees.
In exchange, Rhode Island gets international media coverage – along with the other New England states – that they likely would not get individually. It’s that payoff that excited Brodeur.
“It’s a bargain for us; for the $100,000, we get $6 million worth of PR,” Brodeur says, using a figure Discover New England developed from calculating how much that media coverage would have cost in advertising space.
And that’s not to mention the goodwill that the region builds with international tour operators by hosting events like the one in Maine.
Brodeur says partnerships such as Discover New England, in part have boosted the number of visits from international tourists in recent years, particularly to Newport. He notes that 20 percent of traffic that went into the Gateway Center in Newport last summer arrived from overseas.
Those types of activities might also explain why, while Gov. Donald L. Carcieri is proposing an overhaul of the EDC, the Tourism Division has been left out of the discussion.
With the state in a severe recession and unemployment well above 10 percent, an advisory panel assembled by Carcieri took the EDC and state leaders to task last month for their lack of economic-development strategy and failure to collaborate – going so far as to recommend that the EDC’s board resign immediately.
Yet the Tourism Division managed to avoid the barbs even though the tourism industry is one of the state’s most crucial, pumping billions into the local economy and accounting for 10 percent of the state’s jobs.
“That’s not where the problem lies,” Verrecchia said recently.
The panel focused on broad recommendations for the EDC, including conducting a national search for a new director who is “proven, tested and experienced,” creating an Office of Economic Research and Policy Analysis with the EDC, abolishing the R.I. Economic Policy Council, and reorganizing the EDC board.
In addition, the panel also stressed the need for the EDC to partner with local colleges, universities and hospitals to create economic activity and to partner with the private sector to recruit new businesses to the state.
Are there lessons to be learned from tourism? Possibly.
Tourism officials say forming partnerships is where the tourism industry in Rhode Island has excelled in recent years.
“Every industry should be looking for partners that aren’t obvious,” Brodeur said.
Collaborations such as Discover New England and other innovative marketing strategies have made a difference, they say, allowing officials to stretch their dollars further.
Dale J. Venturini, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association, called the R.I. Tourism Division “wizards at creating partnerships,” working with the state’s tourism councils and the convention bureaus to coordinate and fine-tune marketing strategy and organizing promotional events. “We all work together,” Venturini said.
Collaboration has taken place with private industry, too.
Case in point: The four-person Tourism Division – with a $1 million annual budget – teamed with Rhode Island Monthly to produce a 32-page insert that will be included in the June issue that will outline various things to do in Rhode Island. The insert, called Rhode Trips, is targeting the tourist who is looking to stay close to home this year because of the recession. About 20,000 copies also will be distributed to welcome centers locally. Advertising revenue covered the costs.
Meanwhile behind the scenes, Brodeur said the Tourism Division is making use of the Internet to target its marketing, tracking who is visiting the state’s tourism Web site and where they live. Using that information, the Tourism Division is mailing this year’s Rhode Island travel guide to doctors’ offices, dentist offices and hair salons in those cities and towns, figuring that others in those communities might be interested in coming to the Ocean State this summer, too.
Venturini said such precise marketing is necessary as tourism budgets have been trimmed and as competition from other states has stiffened. Wide-reaching TV spots are too expensive.
Just how effective the Tourism Division’s efforts are is difficult to measure. Tourist spending figures for 2008 haven’t been compiled yet, although most believe the results will be lower than 2007 because of the economic downturn, and 2009 is expected to be weaker still.
Brodeur declined to comment about the advisory panel findings and its critique of the EDC’s performance. He says he prefers to focus on the success stories of the agency and of the Tourism Division.
But Verrecchia didn’t rule out eventual changes to the Tourism Division. He said the panel recommended that the new EDC chief review all divisions of the agency and make changes accordingly.
Last week, Venturini was already lobbying for the R.I. Tourism Division to remain untouched.
“I wish they had more money to spend,” she said, “but tourism is not broken.” •
