Is R.I. ready to sell the Ocean State?

MORE THAN AN OCEAN: The Blackstone Valley Explorer offers tourists a close-up view of the region. / COURTESY BLACKSTONE VALLEY TOURISM COUNCIL
MORE THAN AN OCEAN: The Blackstone Valley Explorer offers tourists a close-up view of the region. / COURTESY BLACKSTONE VALLEY TOURISM COUNCIL

Wind-whipped sails on yachts fluttered at Fort Adams State Park in early May, as Alan Nissen and Annette Poutoppidan enjoyed the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Newport.

The couple from Horsens, Denmark, both avid sailors, spent hours admiring the fleet docked at the park and seized the chance to visit “all the good restaurants,” including the Mooring Restaurant at Sayers Wharf, they said.

“It’s because of the Volvo Ocean Race that we are here,” Nissen said. “We would come back.”

Luring such racing and boating enthusiasts would seem almost easy in the Ocean State, where sailing events have long been a part of Newport’s charm. America’s Cup races served as an international draw for decades through 1983, and more recently in 2012 when the City by the Sea hosted a related series of preliminary races, after the state failed in a bid to lure the actual Cup races back to Rhode Island.

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Yet fresh off the successful hosting of 125,000 visitors over 13 days at the Volvo stopover, Rhode Island faces an upcoming summer tourist season as it has for years – with no official brand to sell, less than half a million dollars in place for statewide tourism marketing, and conflict between state officials and some tourism district leaders over how to fund and market a new branding campaign.

Should the state be doing more to market its natural Ocean State assets? Sure, say state officials, tourism proponents and some business owners, though not necessarily as a focus of state tourism planning.

The “Ocean State” label evolved in the 1960s at the urging of then-Tourism and Development Director Leonard J. Pannaggio to supplant “Little Rhody,” which some people considered demeaning, says Rhode Island historian laureate Patrick T. Conley.

Used for decades, the label has not been associated with a focused, multimillion dollar branding campaign, state officials say, though it does capture the essence of Rhode Island’s extensive shoreline and proximity to water – an element that should be part of any branding campaign, according to some tourism and business representatives.

Lisa Konicki, executive director of the Greater Westerly-Pawcatuck Area Chamber of Commerce noted that the “Visit Rhode Island” Facebook page has only 23,000 likes. Her comparatively small site has 10,411 likes, she said.

“Relatively speaking the state [Facebook page] should have significantly more [traffic] than it does,” Konicki said, describing the limited social media presence as one indicator of the larger challenge in drawing tourists to Rhode Island. “We haven’t peaked, that’s for sure. There’s room to grow.”

In contrast, the interactively marketed Volvo, with reporters embedded on boats, captured global attention and could drive future growth, said organizer Brad Read, executive director of Sail Newport.

Having attracted corporate sponsors and tourists to Newport, Providence and Warwick, the Volvo is expected to yield “substantially more” in economic impact to the state than the $50 million impact registered by the 2012 America’s Cup World Series races, Read said. Attendance at the series numbered 65,000.

Volvo executives also have said they want the Volvo to return to Newport. A report on impacts is due between late summer and fall.

“Rhode Island’s biggest potential legacy is that all these corporate sponsors to the person loved it in Providence, loved it in Warwick and loved it in Newport,” said Read. “This is a sales tool that we’ll be able to use in destination marketing for Rhode Island for a long time. We sell the state well to begin with: this is just another weapon in our arsenal.”

Apart from the investment in a new pier at Fort Adams and the Volvo’s possible rekindling of Newport’s identity as a sailing mecca, others say Rhode Island should be doing more to attract not only beachgoers and sailors, but also hikers, artists, bikers, foodies and history buffs.

Karen King, owner of Style Newport, a Thames Street nautical jewelry store, is eager to see how Gov. Gina M. Raimondo redistributes some of the hotel tax revenue now going to regional tourism districts to fund a statewide campaign. Big events like the Volvo can’t be relied upon but they do help, King said.

“It was not just sailors [coming to Newport],” she said. “There was great publicity and buzz about it, and people came down. We felt it for the full 13 days.”

Newport County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jody Sullivan, Konicki and Caswell Cooke Jr., executive director of the Misquamicut Beach Association in Westerly, note that with less than half a million dollars in funding, state Tourism Director Mark Brodeur has not been given sufficient resources to compete regionally or nationally.

Discover Newport and the Providence Warwick Convention & Visitors Bureau, the larger of the six tourism districts in the state, are “very effective” in promoting the region, said Sullivan.

“They are big enough to have some impact,” she said. “The smaller regions would be more effective if they all worked together. It’s not that they’re not doing a good job; they simply don’t have the resources to promote that message far enough.”

The beach association “is just a little group in Misquamicut, which is only a village, and our budget is $350,000 a year,” added Cooke. Misquamicut, which gained a lot of attention following Hurricane Sandy, today has more than 36,000 followers on Facebook, he observed, noting: “How can a village do better [marketing through social media] than the whole state?”

Underinvested

Part of the reason state tourism needs a boost is that Rhode Island “underinvests” in marketing, say Raimondo and Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor. And the state’s identity, while associated with the “Ocean State,” has no defined brand, they say.

To date, Raimondo says, the state has imposed a hotel tax on visitors and distributed it to local tourism districts for marketing. She wants to redistribute that funding, using an estimated $6.4 million to develop a promotional statewide branding campaign.

Regional tourism district leaders argue that a statewide focus is good, but it shouldn’t be paid for at their expense.

“The problem is,” Raimondo said, “if you spend all your money on [the districts], there’s not enough resources to market the state as a whole. What we need to do is tell the rest of America how great Rhode Island is. We don’t do enough of that now. We have amazing assets: beaches, food, art, cities [and] history. We just have to be smarter and more effective about how we market the state.”

Using the “Ocean State” label can continue to play an important role, added Pryor, “but we need to distinguish ourselves even more. Many states are coastal and have ocean access. Many states tout their beaches and lighthouses, so we need to develop an image for Rhode Island that is unique.”

Dianne Mailloux, a tour guide who on a recent Sunday in May recounted the history of the Blackstone River in Pawtucket for 11 passengers on a 45-minute, 40-seat riverboat cruise, agreed the “Ocean State” label has its limits and hasn’t effectively promoted the rest of the state.

“I’m not so sure it’s a useful nickname,” she said. “I get people all the time who didn’t know we were here or vaguely knew about it. It’s such a beautiful state – the bike paths, the forest, our state parks to the north – and the beaches and bay. [The state is] the best-kept secret in New England. It should be promoted.”

Debbie C. Howarth, a hospitality expert and associate professor at the Providence campus of Johnson & Wales University, said the state is doing the best it can with the resources it has.

“The state can identify a brand, but it needs to incorporate the tourism councils, not exclude them,” Howarth said. “The ocean may be bringing tourists to Rhode Island, but it’s the small events and activities keeping them there. So, it’s so important to have people at the community level championing tourism.”

Promoting It All

“I don’t like ‘Ocean State’ for tourism promotion because there [are] a lot of assets that have nothing to do with the ocean: golf, the Roger Williams Park Zoo, the whole city of Providence,” Discover Newport President and CEO Evan Smith said. “When you’re showing pictures of beaches and sailboats, I don’t think that makes Providence feel awesome.”

Former University of Rhode Island business school Dean Mark Higgins agrees.

“You’re shortchanging Providence and even Newport,” said Higgins, now dean of the John Cook School of Business at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Mo. “You try to brand the state for its beaches, its history, its food, its culture – not one thing,” he said

Bob Burke, the co-owner of the Providence restaurant Pot au Feu and founder of the city’s Independence Trail tourist attraction, says the state isn’t doing a good enough job marketing any of its assets.

“The ‘Ocean State’ clearly doesn’t speak to Providence, which has no beaches,” Burke added. “We have to become more universal in our approach and get away from splicing and dicing every square mile of Rhode Island as its own brand.”

He insists that Rhode Island needs to reclaim its historic identity as the birthplace of freedom, commonly attributed to events surrounding the Boston Tea Party.

Heritage tourism, he adds, is one of the most lucrative forms of tourism in the world. “It’s something the state should be marketing,” he said. “It differentiates us from all the other states.”

Mitch Nichols, president of the Bellingham, Wash.-based Nichols Tourism Group and co-author of the 2014 Rhode Island study, “Tourism Marketing and Branding Investment Plan,” completed with the Radcliffe Company, agrees that the “Ocean State” label is neither focused nor inclusive enough to provide a cohesive branding message.

“Brand is what prospective visitors connect a destination with: images and views and feelings and emotions,” Nichols said. So brand, when done well, helps that visitor relate themes and elements [to the state].”

Some business owners and regional tourism district leaders remain convinced, however, that the shoreline represents Rhode Island’s most prominent attribute.

Myrna George, president and CEO of the South County Tourism Council, and Elsie Foy, owner of the restaurant Aunt Carrie’s in the Point Judith section of Narragansett, think marketing of the state’s shoreline should be a priority. Foy also sits on the council’s board of directors.

“The water, the ocean, is very important to [the state],” said Foy. “It should be the brand. That’s what we’re known for. You’re coming for the ocean, the beaches. We are a family destination. Rhode Island needs to keep that.”

San Diego, like Newport, has hosted the America’s Cup, but as the country’s eighth-largest city, it has its own tourism brand and budget, separate from the state of California, said Candice Eley, the San Diego Tourism Authority’s director of public relations. Ocean resources figure in heavily in city marketing, she said.

In fiscal 2014, the authority spent more than $8 million on tourism marketing alone. State officials could not be reached for a comparable figure for California. The state’s ad campaign is called “Dream Big,” whereas San Diego’s brand is “Happiness Is Calling.”

“Our coastline is a major attraction to visitors,” said Eley. “You see shots of our beaches in just about all the imagery we use to promote San Diego, from advertising to print, to television and our website.”

Hidden Gems?

For a state that prides itself on ocean resources, attendance at Rhode Island state beaches has dropped from more than 1.7 million in 2004 to just over 988,000 in 2014, according to the R.I. Department of Environmental Management. Yet, revenue has climbed from $2.1 million in 2004 to more than $3.7 million last year.

Asked to explain the drop in attendance, DEM spokeswoman Gail Mastrati said lack of promotion statewide is part of the problem.

“If we had more opportunity to promote these special assets we would expect to see an increase in attendance,” she said.

On Block Island, which is not included in the state figures, tourism has never been stronger, said Jessica Willi, executive director of the Block Island Tourism Council.

“We’re obviously happy the governor understands tourism is so important to the state,” said Willi. “[But] I actually would be afraid of changes that could happen if the state were to market Block Island. We are small and ecologically sensitive. We have an influx of 10,000 to 20,000 people on any given day in-season.”

In Blackstone Valley, in the northern part of the state, the number of visitors fluctuates. The Pawtucket Red Sox attract an estimated 600,000 a year, while Twin River Casino in Lincoln gets an estimated 6 million visitors annually, said Bob Billington, president of that region’s tourism council.

Much smaller yields come to the riverboat in Pawtucket and Central Falls, with about 10,000 visitors a year; the Polar Express train in Woonsocket in November and December, 15,000; and the Slater Mill Museum in Pawtucket, in the 20,000 range, he said.

Billington says “Ocean State” doesn’t cut it as a brand.

“It’s very milquetoast,” he said.

So what will work? Something that reflects the state’s diversity, he says.

But, he warned, “you can’t say everything, because as soon as you say everything, you’ve got nothing.” •

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