States Cut Tourism Funds

With summer vacation time nearly upon us, states have found little money for promotion.

June 02, 2010

LANSING, Mich. - States want you to visit, but won??t be asking. Faced with budget deficits, many states have slashed their tourism marketing spending this year, Marketing Daily reports. For example, Travel Michigan??s marketing funds for 2010 dropped 50 percent over 2009, with the money not approved in time for its usual April campaign.

Virginia, too, had its tourism marketing budget curtailed because of the recession. The 2010 marketing budget for tourism, while up $3.6 million from 2009 levels, is still, at $6 million, only at the amount of 1996??s budget.

New York, with its popular "I Love New York" promotion, has no money to fund tourism TV commercials and will be closing one of its tourism centers along the Pennsylvania border in July. The state has half the money shelled out in 2007 allocated for tourism marketing for the current fiscal year.

In addition, Tennessee will likely downsize its tourism marketing budget to plug an estimated billion-dollar budget shortfall.

Meanwhile, many states are turning to social media to push tourism, mainly because the costs are minimal. For instance, the Pennsylvania Tourism Agency has hooked up with Foursquare and Facebook to promote its attractions.

The California Travel & Tourism Commission has teamed up with Southwest Airlines for an online marketing game with consumers competing for weekly airline tickets through June 27. Maryland has started a promotion that has direct mail, social media, email, radio, television and telemarketing components.

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