Just days before the start of the high season in Newport in early July, local tourism officials gathered to talk status and strategy.
At the meeting of the 18-member board of directors for the Newport and Bristol Counties Visitors and Convention Bureau – otherwise known as Discover Newport – the leaders of hospitality and tourism had much to discuss, including signing off on a $5.3 million budget for the next fiscal year.
The Discover Newport sales team reported that it recently coordinated a visit from a group of Italian journalists in hopes of garnering glowing coverage online and in print to woo travelers from abroad.
There was talk of the success of the free “Hop On, Hop Off” R.I. Public Transit Authority bus loop to various tourist attractions – financed through a partnership that included R.I. Commerce Corp.
Another encouraging sign: The sales team had returned to selling group visits of as many as 500 – most recently a conference of finance industry professionals – a sharp rebound from the pandemic-era groups that often maxed out at five.
“During COVID, it was practically against the law to meet,” said Timothy Walsh, Discover Newport vice president of sales. “The atmosphere is back to pre-COVID. The rest of the world is opening up.”
Still, amid the enthusiasm at the board meeting, there were hints of the challenges this summer, too.
The return of tourism means the return of international competition, Walsh said after the meeting.
“People are swarming Europe for vacations,” he said. “Everyone out there is out there beating the drums saying, ‘Come see us.’ COVID is in the rearview mirror. And there are a lot of choices out there. So, you’ve got to stay at the forefront.”
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PETAL POWER: Thousands of tourists were drawn to the 27th Newport Flower Show at the Gilded Age mansion Marble House in late June, one of many events on the schedule for local tourism officials this summer as they compete with other destinations for visitors.
PBN PHOTO/DAVID HANSEN[/caption]
Discover Newport isn’t the only group trying to stay at the forefront, not even in little ol’ Rhode Island.
Similar discussions have taken place throughout Rhode Island as officials in the state’s six tourism districts plan how to promote their individual slices of the Ocean State and attract cash-laden visitors for their busiest months in July, August and September.
It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing in the first month or so.
Realtors acknowledge that in many places short-term vacation rentals have been lackluster this year, with listings staying open longer and renting at lower rates. The hit-or-miss weather patterns haven’t helped, either, keeping some day trippers away. Likewise, some restaurants in tourist hotspots have acknowledged so-so sales.
A lot rides on the success of the high tourist season.
R.I. Commerce says spending by visitors to the state totaled $5.3 billion in 2022 – 17% higher than in 2021 – and that spending sustained more than 84,300 jobs, including 57,500 direct jobs. That’s 1 in 8 Rhode Island jobs that has ties to tourism.
Local tourism leaders say they’ve been working closely with officials at R.I. Commerce on promotion and attracting people from untapped markets and demographics, even though there’s been no apparent overarching message and tagline such as the catchy “fun-sized” campaign from a few years ago.
But some say it ultimately comes down to the work done by the state’s six local tourism councils.
“We now work hand in hand [with the state] on many things,” Walsh said. “You need a state effort with a targeted message, but you also need regional ones because everyone is trumpeting their own song.”
DISTRICT DIVERSITY
That’s largely been the case since 1985, when state leaders carved up Rhode Island into six tourism regions, administered by local councils and overlaid by a statewide district overseen by R.I. Commerce.
The regions are varied in their attractions and resources, from Block Island to the Blackstone Valley, and are funded by a hotel tax paid by guests, 45% of which goes to the tourism district, 25% to the state, 25% to the city or town where the hotel is located, and 5% to the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Overall, the districts received $8.8 million in fiscal 2023, up 10% over 2022, but the shares vary widely, depending on how many visitors are drawn to those areas. Newport received $4 million in 2023, while Blackstone Valley in northern Rhode Island got $565,765.
Robert Billington would like to receive more money, but he’s not complaining.
For decades, the president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council has been extolling the sights in the northern reaches of the state where, instead of mansions and beaches, the main attractions are a river and a rich industrial history.
Sometimes, it can be a tough sell.
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GOING UP: Blackstone Valley Tourism Council President Robert Billington says traveler activity in the region is headed in the right direction, which is returning to pre-pandemic levels.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Billington says the valley seems to be returning to pre-pandemic travel activity. “We started off to [a] pretty good spring from what we can gather. People want to travel,” he said. “We are going in the right direction, but it’s still early.”
The tourism council recently released its 84-page visitors’ guide. Its next big push is an “international restaurant trail,” launching by September, that will feature more than 40 restaurants celebrating the region’s ethnic diversity.
“All of those [restaurants] are going to be on stage for us,” Billington said. “We are telling people to come for the food and stay for the story. Our new focus is about the culture of Blackstone Valley.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the BVTC budget declined by 83% because the hotel tax revenue evaporated. Billington says his group is still clawing back, not easy with an annual budget of between $1 million and $2 million.
He says he’s satisfied with the assistance the council has received from R.I. Commerce while it continues on a decadeslong effort to reinvent the valley from one of the nation’s industrial engines to a leisure destination.
“That’s not remedied by a little bit of promotion,” he said. “Marketing is a small bit of what we do. We are not yet where we want to be. Our hope is to grow if the market is there … which is always a big ‘if’ for us.
“We’re not planning on becoming a Newport or Providence,” he said. “We are happy to be the 10 towns of Blackstone Valley.”
EVOLVING CAMPAIGN?
In March, Anika Kimble-Huntley, the state’s chief tourism marketer, told Providence Business News that R.I. Commerce Corp. was close to coming out with a new state tourism campaign and tagline “that everybody can rally behind.”
But the quasi-public agency has said little since about those plans, despite repeated inquiries from PBN.
On Aug. 2, Commerce spokesman Matthew Touchette in an emailed statement told PBN there will be an upcoming campaign that “will lean on a campaign theme line to create a memorable expression that touts all the state has to offer. The campaign will be different from what Commerce has done in the past.”
But he did not give any details on how the campaign will differ from past efforts.
The R.I. Commerce marketing team recently launched its summer campaign, including exhibits in the Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Atlanta airports. Passengers can enter to win a trip to Rhode Island via a QR code on smart devices, take a selfie and then receive six free Rhode Island digital postcards with their image on them to share on social media, text or email.
Under Anika Kimble-Huntley, Commerce’s chief marketing officer for nearly two years, the marketing team has increased the number of email addresses in its database by 400%, according to Touchette.
It’s an approach appreciated by Kristen Adamo, CEO and president of the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Providence benefits mightily from large-scale events such as conventions and sporting events, which have brought $68 million in direct spending in fiscal 2023, according to Adamo. The bureau booked 240 events in the fiscal year, resulting in 137,350 hotel room nights.
Hotel revenues in Providence and Warwick are up 30% over last year. And June revenue was the strongest month since the start of the pandemic, Adamo says, with a 79% hotel room occupancy rate, an 18% increase from a year ago.
Adamo says tourism marketing by the state is pivoting to more data-driven methods to spark engagement, and her organization is doing the same because it’s seeing the benefits.
For example, Adamo recently discovered a spike in traffic to their website from New Jersey browsers, which will factor into future campaigns.
“You want to know where your customers are coming from,” she said.
R.I. Commerce – which renewed contracts with its advertising and public relations firms in June, including $4 million with RDW Group and $2.18 million with the Zimmerman Agency – has attempted to grab attention in offbeat ways, too.
Two months ago, the agency sponsored a five-minute segment on Jennifer Hudson’s nationally syndicated TV talk show, where an audience member answered Rhode Island trivia questions and played Skee-Ball to win a trip to Rhode Island. Breeze Airways, which has added numerous routes out of Rhode Island, gave $100 vouchers to the other audience members.
Most recently, a campaign to place oversized stuffed quahogs in regional airports generated some considerable buzz. But Touchette said that initiative “has been delayed slightly due to production lead times and airport approval processes.”
The agency hired local artist Julie Lancia, a designer with Symmetry Products, to build the mock-up replicas. “It’s designed to catch people’s attention,” Touchette said. “To make something creative and specific to Rhode Island.”
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GARDEN PARTY: Attendees of the Newport Flower Show in June gather outside the gates after unloading from chartered buses.
PBN PHOTO/DAVID HANSEN[/caption]
MORE SUBDUED
Among the state’s tourism districts, Block Island is an outlier, literally and figuratively.
The island is 9 miles off the coast, and its tiny year-round population swells to 20,000 during the summer. Yet the tourism marketing effort is overseen by Jessica Willi, a self-described “office of one person.”
The executive director of the Block Island Tourism Council credits Kimble-Huntley for identifying untapped travel markets and providing Block Island with useful research analytics, something Willi’s budget doesn’t allow for.
But there’s only so much marketing she can do.
Staffing shortages and inflation makes the hospitality business especially challenging given the island’s isolation and high living costs.
“It’s hard to find workers,” said Becky Clark, who co-owns The Beachead restaurant with her husband. “And employees make the wheels go round.”
Clark says the weather has been a factor too, especially during the Fourth of July weekend that saw heavy rainfall and “diluted” the weekend’s receipts at the restaurant, which overlooks Crescent Beach just outside downtown.
“We rely on a lot of day trippers,” she said.
Clark is now struggling to improve profit margins at a time of rising prices mixed with smaller crowds and fewer reservations.
“It might be too soon to tell, but it is not as crazy as I feel it was last year. It’s a little more subdued,” Clark said in mid-July.
Matt King, owner of Hula Charters Inc., also feels a slowdown from 2022.
“Even with COVID, we were still very busy. But the island seems slower this year,” he said. “I’m hearing that people are going to Europe. Many people I talk to say that [they are considering international travel].”
King agrees the weather this year may have had an impact. Asked if the state’s marketing effort has had any noticeable effect on his fishing charter company, King was unsure.
“That’s hard for me to say,” he said. “But sometimes it takes a year or two to see results.”
With rising wages and increased food costs, it’s a tough balance, Clark says, especially in a place that requires shipping in goods that are then hit with freight charges.
“Inflation has put pressure on small businesses. Customers keep a threshold on what they will spend,” she said. “I think everybody on the island had to go up this year [in prices]. We also have higher electricity, fuel and water.
“People are saying, ‘Why am I going to pay that amount when I could pay that much to go to Europe?’ ” she said.
GET THE WORD OUT
Faye Pantazopoulos, creative director of the South County Tourism Council, says her agency has been focused on marketing beyond the region, from as far north as Canada and to the state’s “drive market” encompassing New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“Our reach is increasing,” she said.
Pantazopoulos says R.I. Commerce helped coordinate travel writers and “influencers” to write about South County. They recently hosted travel writer Tab Hauser to write about boating to Watch Hill for GoNomad.com and Boating Life; influencer and journalist Nneya Richards listed South County as a “Best Places to Travel in 2023,” which the council then featured in a Conde Nast Traveler advertisement.
“That is helping expand our reach,” she said. “[These partnerships] have allowed us to reach into European markets such as the United Kingdom, Italy, China and more.”
Pantazopoulos says the addition of direct flights from such airlines as Breeze Airways and Allegiant Air to cities such as Nashville, Tenn.; Los Angeles; Pittsburgh; Cincinnati; Charleston, S.C.; and Salt Lake City have been a boost.
The bureau plans to spend $840,000 of its $1.6 million fiscal 2024 budget on marketing, mostly on print ads in publications such as Conde Nast Traveler, Bon Appetit and Yankee Magazine.
In 2022, the South County Tourism Council launched the Atlantis Rising International Sand Sculpture Competition, which attracted more than 25,000 people to Misquamicut State Beach in Westerly. Local restaurants and hotels saw a boost from the event, which is returning on Columbus Day weekend in October.
“We definitely expect more people this year. People have been calling and emailing about it and we could advertise using the photos and videos from last year,” Pantazopoulos said.
Attendees last year were “stunned” to arrive and see the towering sand sculptures lit up by drone lights.
“A hush fell over the crowd when it started,” Pantazopoulos said. “They expected sandcastles.”
MARKETING MONEY
Back in Newport, Walsh, the Discover Newport vice president of sales, says the money the state put into tourism promotion was minuscule years ago. “It got to be an embarrassing amount of money to promote the state,” he said. “It was a drop in the bucket from the general fund. And we have to compete with Massachusetts and Connecticut.”
Last year, Discover Newport invested $3.9 million in sales and marketing efforts, according to its annual report. And the organization has a marketing budget of $4.2 million for fiscal 2024.
With so many summer travelers visiting Newport, attracting media coverage is rarely a problem. A feature story was recently published in Vogue Magazine telling readers of the “Gilded Age” lifestyle to be had at the classic Vanderbilt hotel.
Now, tourism officials are putting a concerted effort into drawing more people to Aquidneck Island in the “shoulder” months in the spring and fall, according to Discover Newport board member Charles Holder Jr., a local restaurateur.
“July and August pretty much promote themselves,” he said.
