A recent news story made it appear Indiana is gaining more tourists by spending less, but region tourism leaders say the article virtually ignored how much is spent at the local level to make up for the lack of state dollars.
The Washington Post story said the Indiana Office of Tourism Development had a budget of $2.3 million in the 2012-13 fiscal year, and the state had a total of $8.3 billion in tourism revenue, a return of $3,635 for every $1 spent by the state.
"Of course, Indiana's tourism office doesn't deserve all the credit," the article by Reid Wilson states. "Plenty of visitors come for the Indianapolis 500; or Indiana Dunes State Park, on the shores of Lake Michigan; or the International Circus Hall of Fame in Peru, just north of Kokomo."
The article makes it seem like everyone already knows about those attractions, but, if that's the case, area tourism gurus say people know about them because of the marketing done by the many county and regional convention and visitors bureaus.
South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority Executive Director Speros Batistatos, Indiana Dunes Tourism Executive Director Lorelei Weimer and Michigan City LaPorte Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Jack Arnett all said the state tourism office does a good job with the meager and continually dwindling moneys it receives, but they criticized the article as misleading or worse.
"It was one of the most ill-researched stories," Batistatos said. "The problem with the story is it makes it seem every penny is generated as a sole function of the state."
He said the Lake County agency has about a $4 million budget, which, when combined with the other nine largest convention and visitors bureaus in the state, pumps an estimated $25 million or $30 million into tourism promotion. Indiana's $2.3 million ranked it among the lowest in the nation, and it is less than $2 million now.
"I'd be interested to see how Indiana stacks up when they take all the CVBs in all the states," he said.
Weimer said she "kind of chuckled" when she read the article.
"What they have, they have spent wisely," Weimer said of the state tourism office. "The challenge is they are still underfunded. One of the main geographical markets for our area is Chicago, and we know it is a critical market. The state has no money to go there, so the local agencies do that. It's an expensive market, but we have to be there."
The Porter County tourism budget totals a little more than $1 million with about $300,000 of that for marketing, she said. That's not enough to make much of an impression in Chicago, but, by joining with LaPorte County and the other five county CVBs along the Indiana Toll Road to the east, they are able to help each other.
"When you think about tourism in terms of economic impact, you get an impact almost immediately," she said. "The ability to bring in new money is pretty quick. Once people know what the state has to offer, they decide to visit, come in and spend money and go back."
Arnett said he would attribute the state's success at attracting visitors to the "great work of the CVBs at the county level - 100 percent."
"You can't attribute it to the piddly amount that goes to the state tourism office," he said. "It's not physically possible."
LaPorte's tourism budget of about $1.5 million is about equal to the state's current budget.
"That's terrible," Arnett said of the budget comparison. "I'm not condemning what the state does with its dollars, but they don't have enough money to market the whole state. Michigan gets $30 or $40 million, and now Wisconsin is going at the same level. It's ridiculous what we get in Indiana."
According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, Illinois's tourism budget is more than $55 million, which doesn't include Chicago's, while Ohio's is $5 million and Kentucky's is $7.4 million. The national average of all the states for which tourism information was available was $14.9 million.
Weimer said Indiana's CVBs need to convince the state Legislature to increase the state tourism office's funding, a task that so far has not succeeded.
"They have to think whether it is an expense or an investment, and tourism is an investment," she said. "It's the front door to traditional economic development."
She said a study in Arizona showed that half the businesses that moved to the state were the result of people first being attracted as tourists.
"It gets people excited about the state," Weimer said. "Then they might move to the state."