Here is part 2 of the article about the Destination Marketing Fund (or DMF). Part 1 is here…
From the Niagara Falls Review:
What Happens Here Stays Here. I Love New York. Virginia is for Lovers.
Chances are, if you’ve been around for the past quarter century you’re familiar with the famous tag lines for Las Vegas, New York State and Virginia.
Like all good slogans, they’re short and to the point. And in the case of New York and Las Vegas, they’ve moved beyond their intended purpose -diving headlong into the pop culture realm, generating billions in free advertising. But catchy, quirky and clever comes at a cost.
Although the price tag of the campaign by Vegas-based advertising and marketing agency R&R Partners was not disclosed, the city’s convention and visitors bureau will spend $36.2 million this year to market Las Vegas to the world, according to its budget posted online at www.lvcva.com.
Another $86.7 million is set aside for advertising -the cost to execute those plans in North America and beyond.
“Oh, don’t even show me,” says Anna Pierce, executive director of Niagara Falls Tourism, when presented with Las Vegas’s 2008 and 2009 budgets.
The $2.36 million the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau will spend this year to add 37 new staff to its current roster of 537 employees is a little more than Niagara Falls Tourism’s entire 2008 operating and marketing budgets. But it doesn’t have to be that way.