D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February 2012
Close to Arizona, But with Aliens
New Mexico's tourism efforts get a much-needed reboot.
New Mexicans, especially transplants from someplace else, like to think of our state as a mecca for tourists. After all, we came here, didn't we? And glossy travel magazines frequently rank Santa Fe with far bigger burgs like San Francisco or New York City as among the nation's top tourist destinations.
The truth, it turns out, isn't quite so, well, enchanted. According to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, overnight tourist trips to New Mexico have dropped by nearly 10% in the past three years. Compared to neighboring Colorado and even Arizona, New Mexico's image as a tourist destination is lackluster at best. One focus group kept using words like "arid," "barren" and "dull" — along with simply, "close to Arizona." Several focus group participants wondered aloud whether they needed passports to visit us here in the 47th state. On the bright side, the Journal reported, some folks apparently confused Albuquerque with Acapulco, saying "they had heard good things about the landlocked state's beaches."
We're also attracting the wrong kind of tourists when people do deign to visit, at least in terms of making local cash registers ring. State statistics show that 24% of New Mexico's overnight visitors are age 65 or older — a grayer group than in Arizona, Colorado or Utah, which average only 17% senior-citizen tourists. Older tourists, it seems, don't spend as much as young families. Nor are they as likely to tweet about the wonderful time they had in New Mexico or post their vacation photos on Facebook, giving the state free advertising.
Worse, fully a third of New Mexico's overnight visitors are just passing through, pulling in at a Motel 6 or Day's Inn along the interstate for the night en route to someplace they think is more interesting.
Part of the blame for New Mexico's less-than-magnetic drawing power may lie in the last round of official attempts to promote the state. We remember all too well the state's Rose Parade float that starred bug-eyed little green men, and the accompanying ad campaign that played off Roswell's supposed UFO crash. Hinging your marketing strategy on what can most charitably be described as a myth might not pay the biggest dividends: You don't see Washington State pegging its tourist appeal on Bigfoot, or Hawaii advertising, "Come see the menehune!" instead of showing off its sun-kissed beaches.
Fortunately, the advertising geniuses who brought us aliens are gone. The Martinez administration has brought in a new tourism secretary, whose resume includes marketing such PepsiCo Inc. brands as Quaker Oats and Gatorade. The department also has a new marketing director, Veronica Valencia, who politely says of the UFO-inspired campaign, "I don't know that it resonated."
And last month the Tourism Department announced the hiring of a new agency to handle its $2 million advertising campaign. Vendor Inc., based in Austin, Texas, has handled such accounts as Southwest Airlines, Nike, BMW and WalMart; it also came in with the lowest fee among 20 bidders, 13%, leaving more budget dollars for ad buys. (We're willing to forgive the selection of a Texas agency for now, but the first time a saguaro pops up in a New Mexico ad, we'll be all over it like "Christmas" chili on an enchilada. And please note, Vendor folks, that the dish is spelled "chili" but the pepper is "chile.")
The new agency will start building a "better brand" for New Mexico with a campaign launching in mid-April.
If that $2 million sounds like a lot to you in these cash-strapped times, keep in mind that it's far less than spent by the neighboring states New Mexico competes with. Arizona, which has been slashing funding for everything from healthcare to highway rest stops, nonetheless recently announced a $7 million marketing investment. Colorado, to which focus groups ascribe pretty much all the virtues New Mexico wishes our "brand" possessed, spends more than $12 million to cultivate that image of being "majestic" and "heavenly."
On the bright side, at least New Mexico isn't scrapping its tourism budget completely, as some places like Washington State have done in shortsighted cost-saving moves.
The tourism industry remains a sound investment. Although sometimes derided as providing only minimum-wage jobs changing hotel beds and taking amusement-park ride tickets, tourism is a "green" and innately local business that can't be shipped off to Mumbai like call-center jobs. As much as we might wish that the high-paying blue-collar jobs that created the American middle class would return, that doesn't seem likely in the near future. In any case, many parts of New Mexico — Silver City, for one — are too far off the beaten path and the interstate-highway map to attract major manufacturing interests.
Besides, tourism can boost a local economy in ripple effects beyond jobs as clerks and waiters. Somebody has to build those new hotels, for example. And a steady flow of tourists can support small enterprises ranging from art galleries to outdoors outfitters.
When the economy was better and we felt we could be choosier, people in Silver City used to moan, "We don't want to become another Santa Fe." Not that there's much chance of that happening, but becoming just a smidge more like Santa Fe might not be a bad thing: The unemployment rate there is just 5.5%, even today, and the average household income is over $50,000 a year.
So as the state "rebrands," let's hope some of that spiffed-up image trickles down our way.
Rebranding a state's image can be tricky, however. The Wall Street Journal cites the unfortunate example of New Jersey, which replaced its "New Jersey's Got It" (which inevitably led to jokes about venereal disease) with the defensive-sounding, not much better "New Jersey: We'll Win You Over." (One wonders what slogans got rejected: "New Jersey: It's Not Just Newark"? "New Jersey: Hey, the Sopranos Love It"?)
Whatever tack New Mexico's new marketing team takes, it has to be rooted in the state's authentic appeal. (Selling our "beaches," for example, won't fly.) We also hope the rebranding is not monolithically focused on northern New Mexico. Except for that ill-advised Roswell campaign and the recent in-state Billy the Kid promotion, too much of New Mexico's past promotions have seemed like the state stops at I-40. We pay taxes down here, too, and deserve a share of the tourism attention.
That geographic mix shouldn't be difficult to juggle. While it's a big state and a long drive from Lordsburg to Clayton, much of what makes New Mexico "enchanted" stretches all the way from the Colorado line to the Mexico border. Any successful marketing campaign for the state must be built on our great outdoors and distinctive multicultural mix, seasoned with New Mexico's artistic legacy and Old West history.
That's right — don't forget the Old West, the cowboys and Indians alike. Two of the West's most iconic figures, Billy the Kid and Geronimo, came from our corner of the state. Doubt their continuing fame? A search for "Geronimo" gets 42.9 million Google hits, while Billy comes in at 7.6 million. Georgia O'Keeffe, by comparison, doesn't quite crack the 1 million mark.
Come to think of it, though, an ad campaign built around "New Mexico: From Georgia O'Keeffe to Geronimo" might not be too bad. Sorry, little green men from Roswell, you've had your turn.
David A. Fryxell is editor of Desert Exposure.