By Bill Freeman
Nov. 17, 2011
It seems reasonable a politician looking to cut down on state spending would look at the dollars allocated to their state’s tourism campaign as dollars that would be better spent on things like health care and education, or perhaps better still, on social welfare and job training programs. It seems reasonable, particularly when you look at our country’s unemployment rate, which, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, hasn’t changed much since April of this year. In September 2011, there were still 14 million people out of work in the U.S.
Spending on government-sponsored unemployment relief programs is easier for politicians to justify than spending on tourism campaigns. On its face, it also seems like a safer bet. If a state’s relief program fails, its representatives can at least say that they tried to do the right thing; if a state’s tourism campaign fails, the press and the public it influences are going to hold somebody’s feet to the fire. A failed tourism campaign makes for a much juicier story than a failed relief program. You can be certain that politicians who depend upon reelection for their livelihoods are going to be aware that if they spend on a tourism campaign that doesn’t improve increase jobs and improve their state’s overall economy, they could very well be out of a job.
It turns out that spending on a tourism campaign is a safer bet than your local political representative might think. I was impressed by a Longwoods International study commissioned and put forth by the U.S. Travel Association earlier this year. The study shows that increasing rather than cutting tourism campaign funds can have tremendous effects on a state’s economy.
According to the study, Michigan’s “Pure Michigan” tourism campaign, launched in 2009, resulted in $622 million in visitor spending that year. The study also shows that though the state decreased its media budget from $12.2 million to $9.8 million the following year, according to independent research conducted by D.K. Shifflet & Associates, visitor spending rose from $15.1 billion in 2009 to $17.2 billion in 2010. The Longwoods study points out that increase was “the biggest single-year increase in travel spending in Michigan history.”
In addition to tracking the success of Michigan’s “Pure Michigan” campaign, the Longwoods study tracks the success of Philadelphia’s tourism campaigns from 1997 to 2010. In the end, the study concludes that, “In both cases, return on investment analysis has shown that the marketing dollars allocated [to tourism campaigns] by state and municipal governments have been returned many times over in tax revenue—helping to pay for essential services like schools and hospitals, rather than competing with them.”