Welcome to Absolute Michigan Radio, all Michigan, all the time. Visit AbsoluteMichigan.com for links, features, news and information about the great State of Michigan. This program is brought to you by Traverse Internet Law. Now here’s your host, Damien Allen. Damien: Good afternoon, and welcome to Absolute Michigan Radio. My name is Damien Allen, and joining me on the phone today is Doug Luciani, the President of the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce. Good afternoon, and welcome to the program, Doug. Doug Luciani: Thank you, Damien. It’s a pleasure to be here. Damien: And it’s a pleasure to have you. Today we’re going to be talking about the Pure Michigan campaign and what’s going on the House and Senate with allocating funds for this. Would you like to give us a little background on Pure Michigan, Doug? Doug Luciani: Pure Michigan is a campaign that the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Travel Michigan Division came up with a few years ago to promote tourism outside of the State of Michigan, for people from outside of the state to come in and visit Michigan, and also to keep the travelers in Michigan here as well. So they contracted with a PR firm to help put together a campaign, and what they ended up with really just astounded people. The success of it has just been unprecedented in the tourism industry. I’m sure people have seen it, but importantly, people have seen it all over the country. Last year, 2009, was the first year that they actually did national cable media buys. Prior to that they had been advertising really just in the Michigan area, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, but they advertised last year and were the beneficiaries of really good ad rates. They essentially got $50,000,000 worth of advertising for $30,000,000, and they just covered the country with this to the point that Virginia’s governor in his State of the State speech said: “We need to get our tourism advertising to the stage where Michigan’s is. I’m tired of hearing Pure Michigan in Virginia.” We know people are seeing it and hearing it. It’s been a great campaign, and the issue now though is we’ve had this one year where we really went out aggressively and the State Legislature has proposed to cut Pure Michigan funding from $30,000,000 to $5,700,000, which would effectively make the program go dark in that advertising, which has been very beneficial for Michigan. Damien Allen: The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press have been quoted as saying that the Pure Michigan campaign motivated 2,000,000 trips to Michigan from outside sources, people that don’t live in Michigan, 2,000,000 trips, and those visitors spent $500,000,000 in the state. Doug Luciani: We know from studies that have been done by independent agencies that the return on investment, it really is amazing for the State. For every dollar that the State spends on tourism promotion, it gets back in tax revenues that year $2.86. In fact, the numbers are as high as $5.34, but I’m giving you kind of the four year average that we have been using, so it’s a conservative number, but still almost $3 for every dollar that year in tax revenues, and then about $70 per dollar that the State puts in the funding is spent in Michigan by tourists, so it’s a great return on investment. The issue is not a matter of whether it’s a good investment. It’s almost entirely political. Damien Allen: Now the Michigan House of Representatives passed a package of bills, I believe there was three bills, that would provide a sustainable long-term funding stream for this tourism package, and they passed this by a margin of 96-9. This is now going into the Senate. What are we looking at towards the Senate? Is this going to be an easy flow through, or is there things blocking it? Doug Luciani: It’s been very difficult in the Senate, and certainly not because of Senator Allen, who represents Traverse City and north. Senator Allen has been the sponsor of most of the legislation that has been introduced in the Senate for tourism funding. The language from his bills was most of the language that was adopted in the House in its bills, so he’s been a great champion. Unfortunately, the Senate Majority Leader, Mike Bishop, has not been a champion of funding tourism or Pure Michigan and has really staked his campaign for Attorney General on a promise to not raise taxes. That means programs that need additional revenues, there is no revenue. While we’re not necessarily advocating a tax increase, there are other ways to fund Pure Michigan than to increase taxes in general. So, Mike Bishop, the Senate Majority Leader, rather than assigning the bill to Commerce, which would be Jason Allen’s Committee, assigned the bill to Senator Cassis’ Committee. Senator Cassis has traditionally not been in favor of funding Pure Michigan, and so the bill has been languishing in her Committee. We are trying to get it to move. There’s been a lot of pressure from Northern Michigan and from statewide to get this issue to move out of the Senate and fund Pure Michigan however they need to fund it. I could go on and on, Damien, but one of the main points on this is the way the Senator Cassis and Majority Leader Bishop have positioned this is that it’s really a Northern Michigan issue and doesn’t have a statewide impact. That’s just not true. 40% of all of the tourism dollars spent in Michigan are spent in Wayne County alone. Muskegon’s Michigan Adventure, has said how reliant it’s been on this tourism campaign. Grand Rapids’ Chamber of Commerce made this one of its top legislative priorities this year. This is absolutely a statewide issue. Damien Allen: How does this funding impact the area businesses? Doug Luciani: Oh, gosh, you know, it directly impacts all of our hotel, lodging, cottages, restaurants. Northern Michigan businesses, many of them kind of hold on by their fingernails until what they call “the season”, and that’s basically Memorial Day until after Labor Day, and that’s when they make the bulk of their money. Well, banks depend on that. Chambers of Commerce depend on that for dues. Schools depend on that for families that can live here. We have a diverse economy in the Traverse City area, but it’s still very much dependent on tourism and the indirect impacts on tourism. You know, one of the other things that really impacts is not just the direct jobs that are involved, but when you have to reduce the price of your product, so if you take hotels room from say $215 a night during peak summer times to $149 during peak summer times, we’ve lost that revenue. We’ve lost that ability to pay people like you were paying them before. There’s pressure on wages, and we continue to slide back into that perception that a view of the Bay is worth half of the pay, which we’ve been trying to get out from under that old saw for decades. It does have an impact on the region when tourism goes down or when we’re not able to bring in money outside the region to this region. Damien Allen: And with the State facing a $1,700,000,000 deficit for the fiscal 2010-2011 year, it would make more sense to generate more visitors and more people coming in, thereby adding to the state sales tax coffers whenever they purchase anything here in Michigan. Doug Luciani: If I was dealing with our Finances at the Chamber, and you told me I’ll give you $3 back for every one you spend, I’d sure be looking at that if I was having a revenue problem. Damien Allen: It definitely seems like a no-brainer. What can people do to become active in this cause to try to get their people to pay attention to what’s going on with this? Doug Luciani: There are some things they can do right away. They can contact their legislator, whether it’s House or Senate, but contact your legislator from your area and let them know that you care about Pure Michigan funding and urge them that it needs to be passed. Even if they’re not on the Committee or even if they’re a House Member and the issue is in the Senate, they take that information and they compile it and they submit it at the Committee hearings on the issue. There’s a Committee Hearing this Thursday in Senator Cassis’ Committee to again look at this issue. Contact Senator Cassis’ office. Tell her that this issue is critical for Michigan, and particularly, as a Northern Michigan person, it’s okay to say it’s critical for Northern Michigan, but it’s very important for Michigan. The more we can flood her with these kinds of calls, the more likely we are to get some kind of action out of her Committee. Her phone number is (517) 373-1758. Nobody needs to be an expert on the issue. They’re not going to want to hear your arguments about this or not. They’re going to want to hear a respectful “Pure Michigan needs both a short-term and long-term funding fix.” That’s all that a person needs to say. Her office will say, “Thank you”, and they’ll mark that down. They’ll put another check by that one, and then they start counting the checks. If we overwhelm them with people calling in, get your families to call. You’ve got family downstate, Damien. I’ve got family downstate. I’m asking them to call to make this a statewide issue. The one thing I would urge people listening to this to do is to pick up the phone and make that call. It will take them less than 30 seconds. They don’t have to argue the point with anybody, but it will have a huge impact. Damien Allen: And in today’s economy where the Big Three have basically gone by the wayside, tourism is one of the top three remaining industries here in Michigan. We have a unique state in Michigan. We have the longest freshwater coastline. We have millions of acres of National Forests and State Forests. We have just about every type of environment to enjoy in the outdoors that you can imagine. Whether it’s the sand dunes, the inland lakes, the Great Lakes. We have the Porcupine Mountains, the Iron Mountain area, Copper Harbor. We have so much here. The Great State of Michigan desperately, desperately needs these tourism dollars, and we encourage our listeners to contact Senator Nancy Cassis’ office, as well as Senator Jason Allen and Senator Michelle McManus if they are your Senator for your area. Jason Allen’s number is (517) 373-2413. Senator McManus’ office is (517) 373-1725. Please everybody. Become active in protecting your State and the wellbeing of the people within it, and Pure Michigan is the only way to go as far as I can see it. Thank you very much for joining us today, Doug. Doug Luciani: You know, I couldn’t have said anything you just said better, Damien. It was music to my ears. Thank you for our support, and thank you for the opportunity to be on your show. Damien Allen: It was a pleasure having you today, sir. You’ve been listening to Absolute Michigan Radio. My name is Damien Allen. Everybody have a great afternoon. This netcast is powered by Vertio.net. Vertio.net. 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