A hurried attempt to kick-start Connecticut tourism marketing this summer appears to have produced mixed results as the Labor Day weekend nears, even as venues steel themselves for an uncertain autumn as collapsing markets put renewed stress on household leisure budgets.
More than 40 private-sector entities anted up $1 million to initiate a “quick-start” tourism campaign for the summer of 2011, with local participants including the Stepping Stones Museum for Children in Norwalk and Bridgeport-based People”™s United Financial Inc.
The campaign targeted women in Connecticut and the tristate area via print and radio ads beginning in mid-June with the tagline “closer than you think.”
Speaking at a July economic forum in Torrington, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said some Connecticut venues are already getting a payoff from the campaign, with $15 million more coming for tourism promotion in the state budget.
In June, the state counted nearly 168,000 visitors to major attractions in Connecticut, up nearly 8 percent from a year ago.
“The aquarium in Mystic is up 16 percent this summer because we”™re advertising it,” Malloy said. “So we know that it has an impact.”
Not all venues saw an improvement at the outset, however ”“ most notably Connecticut”™s twin titans of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, whose June slots dropped on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. At deadline, the casinos had yet to report their slot handles for July, as Connecticut”™s quick-start tourism promotions gathered steam.
Venues need all the help they can get, after a 2010 season that saw most nonprofit attractions finish the year in the red, despite some increasing revenue from the recession-addled summer of 2009. As of June, the state estimated that employment in the leisure and hospitality sector ”“ not including casino job numbers ”“ was up slightly from a year ago.
With Connecticut ads steering readers and listeners to CTVisit.com, the website ranked among the 60,000 most frequented sites in the U.S. entering August, according to Alexa.com which provides a free Internet analytics service online.
That bested the performance of Massachusetts, despite more than twice as many website linking into MassVacation.com maintained by the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism. Despite that fact and Massachusetts”™ own promotion of major summer draws like Cape Cod, Boston and the Berkshire Mountains, Connecticut edged out its neighbor and competitor.
Connecticut also beat out Vermont and New Hampshire in the Alexa.com rankings entering August, but trailed Maine and Rhode Island, the latter only barely.
In Connecticut, about half of those visitors classified as “bounces” who viewed only the home page ”“ presumably casual or accidental visitors not seeking information for an outing in the state.
Speaking at a tourism forum in Litchfield County this month, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Culture and Tourism said the state is making headway on other fronts as well, including a behind-the-scenes campaign to reach out to travel writers and trip planners.
Commissioner and Stamford resident Kip Bergstrom said he will measure success not according to the performance of huge draws like the casinos, but rather the smaller attractions that highlight the state”™s New England village charm, or its distinct contributions such as the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan to modernist architecture and art.
“Connecticut”™s not a mass-market product ”“ it”™s not a generic product,” Bergstrom said. “It”™s a very finely grained set of niche products ”¦ I think the story will be that we have stories. You can make a story here.”
I live in this beautiful state of CT and am finally looking forward to viewing the Philip Johnson Glass House this month.So often those of us who live here don’t take advantage of all our CT’s assets! I hope to change that with my continued exploration of CT’s beauty. Carol L.