Report: Rhode Island needs to step up spending on brand to attract tourists

Consultants preparing a $70,000, five-year strategic plan to govern tourism development in Rhode Island say the Ocean State needs to spend more money to forge a forceful, indelible image that would draw visitors here and must do a better job of integrating the state’s many scattered tourism initiatives.
Dave Radcliffe, of the Radcliffe Co. in Spokane, Wash., and Mitch Nichols, of Nichols Tourism Group in Phoenix, Ariz., shared those preliminary findings with Providence Business News before presenting them to industry leaders and other interested parties in a public session last week. A final report is expected later in December.
The two said Rhode Island should be proud of the many assets it has to offer tourists, but needs to do a lot of work to better market those assets to residents of other states. They praised the state’s seven regional tourism councils, but suggested performance standards should be established to better measure their effectiveness. Regional councils, they said, also should file annual performance reports with the state.
“It is important that the [seven] regions work together so the collective effort maximizes the return on the investment,” Radcliffe said. “A key question is: How do we maximize existing resources and encourage cooperative efforts among the regions, for the benefit of the entire state?”
Keith W. Stokes, director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, and Mark Brodeur, director of the state tourism division within the EDC, both said this study will do more than simply coin a new slogan. “This is more than just a branding strategy,” Stokes said. “This is a data-driven effort, so we can do better at linking and integrating the wide variety of tourism products we offer here.” Nichols said he and Radcliffe, who are working together as one consulting firm on this project, are not recommending one overall tourism agency to replace the seven separate councils.
“We think the opposite,” Nichols said of the one-agency idea. “We think the ways that resources are distributed now are reasonable, but we do believe that there should be increased measuring, tracking and reporting of performance [by the local tourism entities].”
Starting seven months ago, the consultants said, they have conducted approximately 35 interviews and held two public sessions, attended by a total of 120 people, to obtain input on the state’s tourism efforts. They also conducted what Radcliffe called “an aggressive review” of existing data from various parts of the state.
Working with the National Laboratory of Tourism & eCommerce at Temple University in Philadelphia and a survey of approximately 1,100 consumers, the consultants found that 70 percent of the visitors to Rhode Island come from five nearby states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Almost two-thirds of these travelers have visited Rhode Island more than once. “Many states strive for this,” Nichols said of the repeat visitors.
However, when asked which states they associated certain themes with, such as “peaceful,” “quaint,” “romantic” and “diverse,” the Ocean State consistently ranked behind other states.
“That perception is critical,” Radcliffe said, suggesting that other states have done a far better job at branding themselves.
Rhode Island’s lack of a strong image is a direct result, the consultants said, of the limited resources it has had to market itself. Brodeur said the state tourism division has a marketing budget of about $750,000 a year, while other states spend “millions” on image-building. The consultants noted that what makes Rhode Island special – such as its history, beaches and architecture – are assets shared by other New England states. “The good news is that the state does not have a bad image, just a little limited,” Radcliffe said. “Building brand awareness is one of the critical needs in this state.”
Regarding the state’s seven separate tourism councils, the consultants said that they hope, as a result of the strategic plan they are now preparing, to see tourism representatives from different sectors of the state work more closely together more often. A key challenge, they added, will be to have diverse segments of the industry – from a chef to an artist to an outdoorsman – start working together on tourism plans for the state as a whole.
Brodeur said two consultants from the West were selected for the study due to their experience. They were among 12 consultants that responded to the state’s request for proposals, including some from Rhode Island. With a combined 50 years’ worth of experience in numerous states, Radcliffe and Nichols offered “the very best proposal” and the “very best experience” of all, Brodeur said.
Further, he said that “a group of industry partners” screened the applicants, including Dale Venturini, president and CEO of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association, Evan Smith, president of the Newport & Bristol County Convention & Visitors Bureau and representatives of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau. •