Tourism is also part of Michigan's economic recovery

By State Senator Gilda Z. Jacobs
Tuesday, March 23, 2010

You and I know and appreciate our state’s extraordinary vacation and natural resources. Many of us regularly engage in being tourists in our own state. If given the opportunity, we sing the praises of Michigan to our friends in other states to get them to vacation here and enjoy what we live with everyday.

For the past several years state officials have had a great opportunity to market Michigan to the rest of our country and Canada, and they have done this very successfully with the Pure Michigan tourism advertising campaign.

These award winning ads have helped bring more tourists into Michigan. According to a 2009 study of Pure Michigan by the research firm Longwoods International, this advertising campaign has paid off handsomely: for every dollar we invest in these ads we get back $2.23 in state tax revenues.

That’s a rate of return we cannot afford to lose, and that is why we simply must fully fund the Pure Michigan advertising campaign. More than 160,000 people work in the tourism industry in our state. They work in hotels, restaurants, ski resorts, and golf courses. They work in the small stores in the towns that line the Great Lakes where people stop to buy snacks and souvenirs.

These are large businesses and small, and they are the life-blood of the employees and owners. If Pure Michigan advertising can help them succeed, then we cannot turn our backs on this program.

The most creative proposal for funding Pure Michigan would add a $2.50 daily fee to vehicles rented at airports for five years. The House of Representatives passed this proposal on March 18th. Earlier this month, the Senate passed legislation allocating $9.5 million in revenue for Pure Michigan. The Republican leadership in the Senate, however, has taken a “no new taxes” stand and that, sadly, applies to the fight for Pure Michigan finding.

Using tourism generated dollars to fund a tourism campaign to bring more tourists to the state makes sense. I recently spent a weekend in New York City, and my hotel bill included sales tax, a room tax, and a NY Javits Expansion Fund tax. The taxes for each day of my stay added up to a little more than $34.00. Those taxes did not keep from going to New York City, and they won’t keep me from going back there. I don’t think a $2.50 per day charge on car rentals at Michigan airports will discourage tourists or business people from coming to Michigan to play or work.

Travel Michigan and the MEDC have done a stellar job of marketing all of Michigan’s many attractions with Pure Michigan. We should keep this statewide-themed ad campaign with this agency, and let other sectors of the tourism industry do their own regional/local-themed campaigns.

Spending a dollar to bring more than $2.00 back into our state is a smart investment. Maybe some families will come here to vacation, like what they see, and come back here someday to live. Maybe a young child or a teenager gets a glimpse of one of our universities, does a little investigating, and chooses our school.

These scenarios are only impossible if we hide our great state’s light under a bushel and let the Pure Michigan ad campaign die. Tourism is an integral part of reinventing Michigan’s economy, and funding Pure Michigan will help us reap all of tourism’s benefits.

Senator Gilda Jacobs represents the 14th Senate District. She can be reached toll-free in Lansing at 1-888-937-4453. Visit her website at http://www.senate.mi.gov/jacobs/