The state’s tourism industry has fought hard for recognition in Augusta as an important part of Maine’s economy, going from a $1.8 million annual budget for the Office of Tourism 10 years ago to $7.5 million today.
But as an unusually mild spring leads to thoughts of the summer season ahead, the reality is that Maine’s visitor numbers for the past five years have been sluggish – going from a high of 44 million in 2000 to 43.6 million in 2004 – the most recent statistics available.
The low this decade was 43 million in 2001 – the year of the World Trade Center attacks – with a recovery to 43.8 million in 2002 and 2003. The budget in that five-year period went from $4.5 million to the current $7.5 million.
What does it all mean?
“Good question,” said Dann Lewis, the director of tourism here since 1995, who pointed to national statistics showing all of New England has been in a slump. What it doesn’t mean is the money spent on promoting Maine has been wasted, he said. Lewis points to other statistics that show the state has attracted one million new people a year with its ad campaigns.
“We’d then start losing a million people a year,” without advertising, he said. In fact, Lewis wants the state’s tourism budget to grow a lot more.
Maine ranks 32nd in the country in terms of its state tourism budget, and the nationwide average is $12.8 million, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. Maine used to be ranked nearly at the bottom, however, until former Gov. Angus King supported legislation that earmarks 5 percent of the state’s meals and lodging tax for tourism promotion. That revenue was estimated in 2003 to give the state Office of Tourism a budget of $5.6 million. The reality was the tax generated $7.2 million for tourism in 2004 and then $7.5 million in 2005 – an amount the Baldacci administration flat-funded in this biennial budget.
Lewis says he knows legislators think “all you want is more money,” but the state has to expand its reach to get ahead. Right now Maine is largely marketing to the region where it already draws most of its customers – New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Washington, D.C. area.
And, most of them come by car and stay for the day. Of the 43.6 million estimated adult visitors to the state in 2004, 34.7 million were on day trips and 8.9 million stayed overnight for one or more days. Combined, the visitors spent an estimated $6.2 billion while they were here.
While some see the state as at least holding its own in this decade, with the advent of the Internet, Maine is competing in a much larger market for tourist dollars.
“There’s a hell of a lot more choices – places that wouldn’t even have occurred to them,” on the Web, Lewis said.
State spending
The lure of Internet advertising landed the department in a controversy last month when an unhappy blogger from Searsmont said the state was outbidding local chambers for prime advertising spots on Google and Yahoo.
The so-called pay-per-click advertising campaign, where the state bids for the top billing when people type in 15 key words, including Portland, Bar Harbor, Bangor, Camden, Freeport, Ogunquit and Acadia National Park, is a small fraction of the promotion budget, Lewis said.
Overall the state spends just over $2.9 million on advertising in newspapers, television, direct mail and on the Web site.
The greatest amount goes into print advertising – $1,283,000 this year – including ads in the New York Times Magazine and its spring Travel supplement; the AARP magazine; Yankee Magazine and its Travel Guide; and the Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post and Hartford Courant.
Another $1,190,000 is being spent on TV advertising. Internet advertising is budgeted for $230,000 this year and a separate pay-per-click budget is $72,000, of which $31,500 was spent as of mid-March for the fiscal year that ends July 1.
The advertising budget is coordinated by the state’s ad agency – Warren Kremer Paino of New York City. The contract, which is worth $3.3 million, including the ad buys and ad production costs, raised a buzz in 2002 when it was first awarded to the out-of-state firm over a bid from a Portland company that had the business.
When the contract was renewed again last year for another three years, however, not a single in-state firm bid on it, Lewis said.
Dick Grotton, president of the Maine Restaurant Association, said the new ad agency got away from the state’s roots when it first started, shunning Maine’s icons in its ad campaign.
“We lost ground in that year or two where we lost our traditional symbols and confused the traveling public,” said Grotton “There was no lighthouse, no moose, no lobster. It could have been about anyplace in the world.”
He said the issue was a “leadership problem. Dann was too willing to stay with them too long.”
People are happier now that the traditional symbols are back, he said.
Barbara Whitten, president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Portland, sits on a strategic marketing committee that advises the office. She said it’s tough to run an ad campaign by committee.
The intent of the ad campaign has been to market Maine “as the outdoor capital of the Northeast,” she said. “In some ways that works really well,” but some tourists may be left wondering, “Will there be anything to do?”
“They’re doing the best they can with limited resources,” Whitten said, and have had to target the Northeast with their adds. She would like to see more money spent in places like Chicago and Philadelphia, which have direct flights coming into Portland.
“If you want to compete effectively, you’ve got to fund us professionally,” Whitten said.
She had high praise for Nancy Marshall Communications, saying the firm has generated “millions and millions of dollars in non-paid advertising, editorial coverage,” in places as far away as Texas, California, the UK and France.
Nancy Marshall’s company handles public and press relations for the tourism department and has been with the state since 1993. Her contract, which also comes up for bid every three years, is for $490,000 this year. She has a separate contract with the tourism office’s sister organization – the Maine Office of Business Development – for $237,500.
Other companies with big-ticket contracts include: $630,000 with the Maine Tourism Association, which runs the state’s eight visitor centers and puts out the 274-page “Maine Invites You” guide; $570,000 with Direct Mail of Maine, which handles the mailings of guides and other materials to interested visitors; $352,000 for Portland Webworks, which manages and develops the state’s website www.visitmaine.com; and $284,500 for Longwoods International, which does annual research on visitors and their travel habits.
Regional versus state
The state office is also required to spend 10 percent of its overall budget – or $755,000 – to help eight regional councils promote their area, from the Midcoast to the inland lakes and mountains all the way up to Aroostook County.
While that regional sharing was written into legislation, Lewis sees his main job as promoting the state as a whole. That was his defense for paying for popular coastal destinations on the Web to lead people to the visitmaine.com Web site.
Several chamber directors interviewed for this story agreed with the strategy.
Jaimie Kleinstiver of the Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce said, “We understand the value of working together.”
She said when Lewis came on board it was made clear the focus of the state operation was to promote the state as a whole and as a year-round destination. “It’s up to the local region to promote their own areas,” she said.
She disagreed with the flap over the state using popular town names to lure people to the state Web site, saying, “A rising tide floats all boats.”
“I thank God for LL Bean and Freeport. I thank God for Acadia National Park,” she said, because if that’s why people initially come to the state, they’ll eventually travel around and discover other places.
In the pay-per-click controversy, the state was accused of outbidding local chambers for the top billing when an Internet user types in a key word or phrase. In one example, the state bid $1.25 per click for a town keyword, while a local chamber was only able to bid 80 cents. If a person clicks on the first thing that pops up, he would be directed to the state’s Web site rather than the local chamber’s.
“I think that they’re doing a pretty good job,” said Barbara Clark of Sebago Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce. “Our chamber Web site’s linked to that, so they’re eventually going to find us.”
“Information flows downhill. Eventually they’re going to find their way and that’s going to impact the economy here,” she said. “All of us need to work closely together to bring the dollars here to Maine.”
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