|
 |
|
|
|
Tourism: Washington's Stealth Industry |
|
|
|
Written On: May/June 2006 |
|
|
|
Written By: by Ron Dalby |
|
|
|
If Boeing makes a big sale, it's front-page news. If Washington has a bumper crop of apples, the news is rife with stories of a farm worker shortage because there aren't enough people to pick them. If somebody complains about Microsoft, the business pages in the Seattle papers build on the story for days. But, how many people have heard that Washington entertained 24 million visitors in 2005?
Think about tourism for a minute, and think of all Washington has to offer. Look at a map and let your mind wander over everything in between the Pacific Ocean and the Idaho border.
People from all over the country — and all over the world — want to visit Washington. In 2004, tourists spent $11.5 billion, created 140,000 jobs, and put more than $830 million into the state’s various tax programs, according to the Washington State Tourism office in the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development.
Say What?
The tourism industry is doing well in Washington, yet the only thing you've likely heard about it lately is the current campaign to lure visitors to the state based on the phrase, "Say WA." Let it suffice to say that "Say WA" did not get too many positive reviews, but other than the initial flurry of reports and editorials in March, not much more has been written about the controversy it generated or anything else about tourism for that matter.
Part of this problem is marketing. Washington, seemingly, does not go to great lengths to market itself as a destination as many other states do. California, Nevada and Florida come readily to mind in this regard. Our state’s tourism marketing budget for 2006 is $442,000 for the creative work and placement of the "Say WA" advertising campaign. This money is spent primarily for magazine advertising in selected western states. About 85 percent of travelers in Washington come from Washington (anyone who travels more than 50 miles is considered a visitor by the state) Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada and Montana.
If you watch any television at all, you've almost certainly seen ads for California, Florida, Texas, New York, Nevada and a number of other states that have recently put together campaigns to pursue more visitor revenue. The five listed here are the big spenders in terms of travel advertising, and it shows in terms of the revenue generated by visitors. California took in $71.6 billion in tourism dollars in 2003 and generated tax revenues of almost $12 billion. Put another way, the tax revenue generated by California's travel industry alone would fund nearly half of Washington’s annual budget.
There is, obviously, money to be made in the travel industry. Individual operators in Washington certainly advertise as needed to get a certain level of customers into their facilities so they can earn a living in the business they have chosen, but, taken individually, these solo ventures don't amount to a major campaign aimed at increasing the number Washington's visitors across the board. In fact, according a recent strategic summary prepared by the state's tourism office, visitation to Washington is actually trending slightly downward, while it is going up in almost all other areas of the country.
The number of Washington residents employed in the tourism industry actually declined slightly in 2001, 2002 and 2003 after showing steady gains in prior years, according to the Impact of Travel & Tourism on the U.S. and State Economies, published by the Travel Industry Association of America in 2005. Dollars were up some, but overall employment in the industry is stagnant or slowly trending down.
In the same report, however, those states with aggressive tourism marketing campaigns are showing larger dollar increases and increases in the number of visitors with relatively little change in employment numbers, all of which suggests that there exists plenty of capacity in most areas to handle the increasing number of visitors. It could also mean that people who might have visited Washington were lured to other states.
Five states — Arizona, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Wyoming — are growing tourism dollars at 5 percent per year or more with little change in tourism employment numbers. These states are also among those most aggressively marketing themselves as destinations, usually through television and magazine ads inviting viewers to call or go online for a free, official state travel guide, which is essentially a catalog of advertisements for many of the things for visitors to see and do in the state.
The existing Washington State Visitors Guide 2006 is published by the Washington State Hotel and Lodging Association. Other guides available include A Travel Guide to Indian Country from the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, Washington State Festival and Events from the Washington Festivals and Events Commission, and the Washington State Bed and Breakfast Guild Lodging Directory from the Washington Bed and Breakfast Guild.
Books in other states, however, are often state sponsored and are tagged the state’s official travel or visitors guide, not developed and published by a particular segment of the industry. And, though state sponsored, these books almost always more than cover the costs of printing and distribution through advertising sales. This makes such books a win-win for all parties.
Advertisers pay a premium rate, it's true, but a state-sponsored book has a certain cachet about it that tends to enhance the value of the advertising. Besides, the number of copies generally runs into the hundreds of thousands, all of which are direct mailed to individuals who have expressed an interest in receiving it, enhancing the value of all the advertising contained in the book. It is, in many respects, like putting your information in front of a ready-to-buy audience.
Washington is spending relatively little money to promote itself via the "Say WA" campaign. These ads invite you to call or go online to www.experiencewa.com. The latter is a very pretty Web site that does picture some of the best Washington has to offer and it leads you to the privately published travel guides described above.
Washington vs. Other States
A "Say WA" ad ran in the April issue of Smithsonian magazine, along with similar "visit-me" ads from at least seven other states. Contrast the Washington offering with Colorado, which offered a free, official vacation guide, maps and other publications either in print or online so you could get right into whatever might interest you. Also, when you fill out the form for Colorado, the state collects demographic data from you as well, to better determine how to make their advertising even more efficient in the future. All the information collected for the various Washington guides is just name and address type material and apparently goes to the private agency producing and distributing the guide.
The Bottom Line
There is almost certainly more tourism business available to Washington, but efforts to promote the state as a destination are not as aggressive as those in other states. Of the 13 western states, Washington has the lowest annual budget in its travel office, according to Peter McMillin, Washington's tourism and film director. Of the entire 50 states, Washington's tourism budget is either 44th or 46th, depending on who has reported at any given time. We are probably losing visitors to other states because of this limited amount of promotion.
Possible solutions might at some point include the formation of a statewide visitors association. There is currently some discussion in the tourism office about developing a state travel commission, which could be considered a step in this direction. Preliminary efforts in this area last year included the establishment of the Experience Washington Coalition and a Branding Advisory Committee.
Certainly a state-sanctioned visitors association, similar to those in other states and ideally funded mostly by private capital, could come together to create an official state visitor’s guide and the advertising necessary to get it in hands of prospective visitors. The visitors are out there; they just need to be told of what a great destination Washington is and then handled in an organized way that brings them to our state.
|
|
|
|
