Posted: Monday, December 29, 2014 6:00 am
In practically every conversation about diversifying our economy here in West Virginia, tourism has a prominent place in the list of options that we should pursue.
And that isn’t coming just from economists or political leaders.
In November, the subject of tourism took center stage at the SCORE meeting in Oak Hill, perhaps understandable given the natural blessings that have been bestowed upon Fayette County.
Speaker followed speaker to give their views and ideas on how to maximize tourism’s economic impact in southern West Virginia.
What we are learning about tourism, however, is that the subject is more complicated than it first appears, especially if one is talking about making it a cornerstone of our economy.
We all take vacations, and all of us have our likes and our dislikes.
But we are finding that the business of tourism is not as simple as we thought. If tourism were easy, southern West Virginia’s natural beauty alone should make us a global destination.
A study by the West Virginia Division of Tourism shows us just how competitive the tourism game is, and that West Virginia is behind some other states when it comes to a tourism strategy.
Division of Tourism Coordinator Joe Black talked last week about a new study that tasked potential visitors to the state to compare West Virginia to surrounding states, like North Carolina.
What they found was that people who had visited West Virginia previously had higher regard for the state as a tourist destination than people who had never been here.
That really shouldn’t be much of a surprise to us. Those of us who were born here or lived here for any time know we’re one of the nation’s best and most beautiful secrets.
Problem is, for tourism to really have a positive economic impact on the state, how do we get people here for that first visit? And how much should we spend to do that?
For Black’s part, he says the tourism agency needs to market the state in an ad campaign to show that West Virginia is an exciting, romantic and family-friendly place.
“It’s time for a shake-up,” he says.
Getting people here on a first visit seems to be the hang-up.
The state only spends some $3 million a year on marketing West Virginia to potential visitors. And that, says Frank Jorgensen, chairman of the West Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association, isn’t even close to being enough.
“We are not even on the radar screen,” he told us at that SCORE meeting in Oak Hill last month.
We think the Division of Tourism is on the right track, and that a marketing campaign targeting people and families who have never been to West Virginia is a smart move.
But as we are finding when we weigh other avenues for economic development, there can be a cost.
Yet spending more on marketing West Virginia might be just what is needed. After all, state tourism officials say that for every $1 invested in marketing, West Virginia gets a return of $7 spent by tourists here.
To us, spending more on tourism marketing looks less like an expense and more like an investment.
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Monday, December 29, 2014 6:00 am.
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