Iowa deals with identity, budget when it comes to tourism

The one-hundred-billion-dollar nationwide travel and tourism industry can be a cash-generating machine for some state and local governments.

Some states have an easier time drawing in visitors than others. Florida has its beaches and Disney World, New York City boasts Broadway and the Empire State Building, while California has celebrities, wineries and surfers.

But when it comes to Iowa tourism, the state has a challenge.

"We have an image problem in that Iowa doesn't have an image," said Shawna Lode, Iowa tourism manager. "A lot of people just don't know what's here, but when they do come here, they're thrilled with what they find - waterfalls, national parks, the National Czech (and Slovak Museum and Library) - there's so many hidden gems."

While tourism isn't the state's biggest industry, domestic travelers did spend about $7.2 billion in 2011 - a 10.3 percent increase from 2010, according to the Iowa Tourism office. The money injected into the economy helped create 63,400 jobs in 2011, a 2.2 percent increase from the year before.

"Tourism also brings new money into the state and helps subsidize what residents pay for, like schools and safety," Lode said.

Big competition

About half of those traveling around Iowa live in the state, Lode said, which is fairly consistent with other states' tourism numbers. But Iowa is falling behind in another category.

The state only spends about $2 million of its $4 million annual tourism budget on marketing itself, Lode said. She noted that the national average for state tourism marketing is about $14 million a year.

"We have big competition with a limited budget," she added.

And while Iowa may not be able to compete with Mickey Mouse or the New Jersey pier, it  can hold its own against other Midwestern states. Along with the Czech and Slovak museum, it boasts the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium, work by Grant Wood and a host of other attractions and events, including the across-the-state bicycle ride RAGBRAI and the Iowa State Fair.

But surrounding states greatly outspend Iowa. In 2010, Illinois allotted $44 million for the state's tourism budget, and Michigan had a $30 million budget.

Iowa's budget seems paltry in comparison, Lode said, because each states' tourism budget is made up by different funding models.

So while Iowa gets funding appropriated from the state's general budget and another $1 million from a state gaming tax, other states may appropriate different taxes or revenues to their tourism budgets. For instance, Illinois receives funding from a state lodging and hotel tax, 

These larger budgets bring in large return on investments. The most recent state data shows that Illinois tourism generated nearly $31 billion for the state's economy in 2012, while Michigan generated about $17.7 billion in 2011.

These big spenders in part prompted Wisconsin to up the ante when it comes to tourism marketing. In 2011, that state put in an additional $5 million to its $9.9. million tourism marketing budget, said David Fantle, deputy tourism secretary for Wisconsin.

The outcome - the state has seen a $2 billion jump in tourism's economic effect on the state economy.

"We've gone up from $14.8 billion to $16.8 billion," Fantle said.

The increase in the marketing budget allowed Wisconsin to reach new markets, including Eastern Iowa, in which Wisconsin ran ads for the first time in summer 2012, Fantle said.

And those new dollars have created new jobs in the tourism and hospitality industry, which supports 1 out of 13 jobs in the state, he said.

"It's important that leaders understand how much of a driver tourism is, from the state officials on down to local officials," he said.

Traveling close to home

Iowa just finished its spring campaign - a $900,000 multimedia advertising campaign that ran in April, May and June in surrounding states that showed off Iowa attractions. Lode said the state targets "social moms" - mothers with children under age 18 who are active online.

The campaign, handled by ZLR Ignition in Des Moines, aired advertisements in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Kansas City and Omaha.

The state also deployed a new marketing technique in early July - nine trucks wrapped with images from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City-Coralville as well as from Ames, Burlington, Cedar Falls, Newton, Okoboji, Sioux City and Waterloo.

The tourism office partnered with the cities' convention and visitors bureaus and the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division to provide rolling billboards that encourage in-state travel. The trucks will be used for 18 months and travel an estimated 1.6 million miles.

And one of the state's largest tourist attractions - the State Fair - is quickly approaching. The 11-day event brings in more than one million people each year from around the state and the Midwest to eat fried food on a stick, view the famous butter cow and attend concerts.

The fair does advertise in cities outside Iowa, such as Omaha, Neb., but about 75 percent of its attendees are Iowans, fair officials reported.

"To be a traveler, you don't have to get on an airplane or go a great distance," Lode said. "A lot of people now want to take shorter trips, closer to home, because they don't have the time of tight finances."

The numbers:

Here are the 2011 numbers on Iowa tourism:

• Total payroll income received by domestic travel-generated employees and workers in Iowa increased 3.7 percent from 2010 to $1.1 billion.

• On average, every $114,366 spent by domestic travelers in Iowa during 2011 generated one job.

• Domestic traveler spending in Iowa directly generated $802.8 million in federal, state and local tax revenue in 2011, up 2.7 percent from 2010.

• Polk County, which includes the city of Des Moines, generated more than $1.6 billion in domestic traveler expenditures to lead all Iowa counties in 2011.

• Fourteen of the 99 counties in Iowa received more than $100 million each in domestic travel expenditures in 2011. Thirteen of Iowa's counties had 1,000 or more jobs supported by domestic traveler expenditure.

Source: Iowa Tourism Office