Councils: Centralized marketing won’t woo visitors

Rhode Island has cut state-level tourism-promotion spending 89 percent since 1995. So leaders of the state’s seven regional tourism councils, which have picked up some of the slack for cuts at the top, bristle at suggestions that centralization of visitor marketing is what’s needed to spur growth.
“You wouldn’t have an economic engine if it wasn’t for the accountability of the local regions,” said Myrna George, president and CEO of the South County Tourism Council. “We know how to collaborate with each other and what we are missing is adequate funding.”
Given what’s happened to the tourism-division budget, George said giving state leaders more direct control of the regional council budgets could be a recipe for disaster.
“None of us would have been able to build what we did if that was the case,” she said.
Not for the first time, Rhode Island’s sluggish economy and shrinking state tourism division have spurred talk of tourism-marketing centralization in recent recommendations from the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council and Make It Happen RI attendees.
“It appears that there is a need for better coordination with the other state tourism agencies,” the RIPEC report said. “This increased cooperation would allow for a more cooperative and cohesive approach to the promotion of the state through the various organizations. … One possible strategy is to move funding to the [proposed secretary of commerce] for distribution to the regional tourism districts.
The Make It Happen RI progress report issued last month included “continuing to promote collaboration and coordination among the regional tourism bureaus” as one of the action items distilled from attendee suggestions. Projecting a more unified Rhode Island brand was a priority of former Gov. Donald L. Carcieri in 2005 and of Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee early last year in the wake of a consultant’s findings that perception of the state as a whole was weak.
In the spring of 2011, then-R.I. Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Keith W. Stokes said “parochialism is not healthy for Rhode Island” as he worked to rehabilitate and promote the state brand.
He pointed to survey findings from the Radcliffe Co. and Nichols Tourism Group that showed Newport and Providence, which have the largest local tourism organizations, held positive name association outside the state, but Rhode Island as a whole did not.
But regional tourism leaders say collaboration between themselves and the state tourism division, always strong, is at an all-time high.
“We have always collaborated and the regions have consistently pooled resources,” said Martha Sheridan, president and CEO of the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We will always talk about the state holistically whenever possible. We say, book a city, get a state.”
The problem, they say, is not that they aren’t promoting the state enough, but that the complementary, statewide marketing effort has been starved of resources and fallen away.
As examples of ways the regional bureaus collaborate, Sheridan cited a team effort at trade shows, meetings with national tour associations and on familiarization tours for national and international travel media.
Like most states, tourism promotion in Rhode Island is funded through the proceeds of the 5 percent hotel room tax.
In every community except Providence and Warwick, 47 percent of the tax receipts go to the local tourism council, 25 percent goes to the state general fund, 21 percent goes to the city or town itself, and 7 percent goes to the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau. In Providence and Warwick, 31 percent goes to the local council and 23 percent goes to the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitor Bureau.
On whether the funding should be channeled through an executive-branch office, Sheridan said she would have to see the details of any proposal to know, but doesn’t see it as a priority.
“The tourism industry has been successful,” she said.
Similar to the rest of the recommendations in the RIPEC report, Chafee has yet to tip his hand on tourism funding.
“All of those things are under consideration,” said Chafee spokeswoman Christine Hunsinger about whether the governor will propose changes to the tourism-funding structure in next year’s budget. “If there is a way to combine similar tasks and coordinate to get more bang for the buck, the governor is a big believer on the efficient use of taxpayer dollars.”
Although it’s still dwarfed by the $15 million Connecticut spends each year on tourism marketing, the Rhode Island tourism-division budget was raised by the EDC this year to $400,000, up from $330,000 last year, said Tourism Director Mark Brodeur.
Regardless of any policy changes, what will help both the state and local tourism offices is an economic recovery that boosts hotel stays and revenue across the board.
There were encouraging signs in July, when hotel-tax revenue rose 13.5 percent, or $235,000, compared with July 2011, according to the most recent monthly hotel tax report from the Department of Revenue’s Office of Revenue Analysis. •

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