Wisconsin visitors’ bureaus team up to attract more minority tourists

By Sheila B. Lalwani
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
(July 15, 2006) As part of an ongoing campaign to reach out to potentially lucrative communities, the Racine County Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Greater Milwaukee Convention & Visitors Bureau are teaming up to attract diverse audiences to the region.

They announced last week that they had received a matching state grant of $40,000, which will allow them to work together for the first time to promote the region among minorities in neighboring states. The initiative comes at a time when both markets are experiencing modest tourism traffic.

"The grant is meant to encourage regional cooperation," state Secretary of Tourism Jim Holperin said.

Officials from Milwaukee and Racine said they plan to use the money to promote the region in western Michigan and Illinois through ethnic or minority media, such as the Chicago Defender newspaper, during the fall. Officials said the grant is part of an overall $1.4 million state strategy to attract diverse tourists to Wisconsin.

The bureaus plan to combine efforts to promote the best of both counties; apple picking in Racine County and shopping in Milwaukee, for example.

The campaign to attract new audiences begins in the second week of September and runs until mid-October. If the counties can show that the effort is increasing traffic in the region, they are eligible to apply again for state funds.

According to the most recent figures from the state Department of Tourism, spending by tourists in Milwaukee for 2005 totaled $1.55 billion, about 13% of the state's total tourism dollars. The figure remained virtually unchanged from 2004. Racine, the 11th-largest tourism market in the state, received $250 million in tourism spending for 2005 and showed an increase of 5% from 2004.

Figures show that tourism spending from September through November 2005 was $395.4 million in Milwaukee County, while Racine County collected $63.2 million.

Dave Blank, executive director of the Racine bureau, said the county hopes to gain visibility where it had little or no exposure. He noted the rural and urban components of Racine County and said the county hopes to attract a wider audience.

"This is a great opportunity to get out the word of Racine," Blank said. "We've got this opportunity like never before."

In particular, Blank said, the grant will help promote the Racine Art Museum. He said he hopes the grant will allow the county to promote art shows to different audiences.

Doug Neilson, president and CEO of Visit Milwaukee, said the grant will help the bureaus showcase different urban and rural charms of the area.

"Those (groups) are a large audience that we need to capitalize off of," Neilson said.

One marketing expert, however, wondered whether the state is taking the right steps.

Christie Nordhielm, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the idea is well-intentioned but needs another look.

"It's not unusual to attempt to look to new target segments," she said. "I'm not sure that doing demographic segmentations is the best idea."

She said the current shift in marketing trends is to reach out to segments based on attitudes, which would probably be more efficient and more effective.

"The purpose of the target audience is to increase the efficiency of your effort," Nordhielm said. "As you target, you are talking to smaller and smaller groups of people."

She said marketers should focus on what groups of people like to do, instead of reaching out to people based on their racial or ethnic affiliation.

"Do only black people listen to hip-hop?" she asked. "That was an assumption made in the recording industry that was wrong."

In addition to targeting African-Americans, tourism officials said they want to attract more Latino and Asian visitors. Officials said they intend to work with the Community Connections Network, a Milwaukee-based magazine that targets minorities. The magazine is working on an issue about tourism in Wisconsin.


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