The mood was celebratory and tourism professionals’ confidence levels sky high at the Michigan Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Traverse City earlier this week. More than 700 participated in the three day event and much information was disseminated at the conference.
Last year’s impressive state tourism results were discussed and the forecast for this year expects Michigan to see at least 1.5% more tourists who will be spending more money throughout the state. Tourism officials, riding on impressive gains over the last several years, are expanding their efforts (and budgets) to gain a bigger share of the international tourist segment. It was mentioned China alone has more than 100 million outbound tourists every year. Capturing a small percentage of that massive tourist market could prove very valuable for our state.
While the Pure Michigan campaign has been a smashing success for Michigan gaining recognition as a “destination tourist state”, participants were eager to learn how to move the bar higher in 2014 and beyond. The keynote speaker, Doug Lansky, a well known tourism expert and writer, asked the audience to think like a theme park, think like an award winning hotel and think like a travel writer when marketing their unique brand of our state to potential tourists.
He further remarked that travelers are looking for authentic, personal experiences and the more one can provide such an experience, the more tourists will beat a path to Michigan’s doorstep. Lansky spoke about how Birmingham England changed its former down and dirty image as a blue collar, lower class city to the #1 UK destination for travel and a new cultural icon of England. If Birmingham changed their image, certainly Detroit can have similar positive results, as it is starting with much more infrastructure, culture and Motor City branding in place. All it takes is vision, resources and community “buy in”.
George Zimmermann, who many in the audience credit with turning our state’s tourism fortunes around and being integral in the creation of the Pure Michigan campaign, spoke about his 13 year journey with Travel Michigan, his pending retirement and the reason for reaching across borders to keep the state’s tourism momentum on track. While there is much concentration on the Chinese tourist market, Canada has more than double the visitors to the US (22 million last year) than any other country. Thus the reason for additional expenditures marketing to several Ontario cities, including Toronto. The Bottom Line Message: Tourism is a very good industry to be in right now in the State of Michigan. This conference rightfully concentrated on making Michigan an even better place to visit. As the year unfolds, the economy and weather will certainly play a factor in Michigan’s quest for more tourism dollars, however, 2014 should be another record tourism year for our comeback state.
ROBERT E. MATTLER, Associate Broker, Attorney and LEED AP BD+C, is Director of Green Brokerage at Armada Real Estate Services in West Bloomfield, Michigan. He speaks, writes and reports about emerging green real estate and development issues in Michigan and elsewhere. Bob is a senior correspondent for www.greeningdetroit.com For more information, contact Bob at Armada Real Estate (248) 855-1221; or by e-mail: bmattler@armadarealestate.com
