Toady Passed

Sorry I've been incommunicado. For those who took such kind interest in my older, female English Bull Dog, Toady passed away this morning during a routine visit to the vet. The folks at North Paw Animal Hospital did all they could to revive her but her heart had just given out.

I was just outside the door and got to say goodbye. I've had to take her in the back door at the vet for years now because of the Alzheimers.

She's been a great companion for more than a decade and I miss her deeply. But I'm glad she went quickly and without pain. I'm also grateful for the last several months. She's been happy and affectionate, even frisky (as frisky as an English Bull Dog can be) and pracing and running like a pup. She had also regained that Bull Dog sense of humor.

She even took off and raced me to the door last night. I'm just glad she could wait until I got back from the Pacific Northwest.

Goodbye Sweet Girl. RIP

Kudos on Cultural Industries Analysis

Kudos to the NC Departure of Cultural Resources for teaming with the Department of Commerce and its Policy Research & Strategic Planning Division and adopting very credible techniques for measuring the economic impact of what the report terms the “creative” industries (note the plural which is another kudo.)

For far too many years, enthusiasts and advocacy organizations around the nation have deployed impressive but flawed techniques to document the impact of culture and the arts that weren’t defensible.

But this report uses ImPlan methodology, an input-output analysis with factors specific to this state including various economic codes to generate not just the typical “gross” spending but the actual net “value added” to the state’s economy.

Balancing Special Interests

A key element of community destination marketing is balancing or some say “resisting" special interests. Special interests range from the very subtle to bullying.

Far too many DMO’s though get cornered into pandering to special interests. It starts with giving preferential treatment based on “who’s asking.” The “who” in “who’s asking” might be based on power and money or politics or even friendship.

In many communities, pandering to special interests is too embedded in the culture for the DMO exec to resist or change or the communities only select DMO’s they know will play along and give special treatment to a particular part of town or a theater, festival, hotel, sports event or restaurant, golf course or meeting facility.

And if the DMO exec in these cultures tries to resist the pressure, they are likely to hear a comment like “I think the organization needs a change in direction” and the person or group uttering the statement typically means that the change needs to be in “their” direction.

In reality, few people think of themselves as a special interest. They just see the world through a lens that puts their interests at the center or they get hammered by owners or headquarter offices operating with the premise that the only way to leverage the benefits of a DMO is to have it in your pocket.

In Durham, I’ve benefited from the strong egalitarian value inherent in Durham’s overall character or personality.

In almost every case, the people who demand special treatment don’t grasp that any one element of a community’s visitor product, at best, will involve 4% to 10% of visitors or that blending elements into an overall community story is far more effective than stereotyping it around one element or another...

Fortunately, the governing boards under which I’ve served have each had strong policies and in fact evaluated my performance in part on the ability to resist special interests. They’ve also displayed the collective and individual courage to stand firm. when “the boat is being rocked” by a special interest.

At DCVB, the key I’ve found to balancing special interests here is that the governing board right at the start, embedded several elements central to the organization’s culture including these six:

1. Ensure decisions are always data or information driven vs. by anecdotes, opinions, emulation, so-called conventional wisdom or “who’s asking.”
   


2. Shepard “place based” assets. These are assets that are unique to Durham or home grown and distinguish it from other communities.
   


3. Make decisions on what “segments” to pursue based on optimizing fair market share, exploiting the community’s overall potential and diversification.
   
   
4. Calibrate decisions based on the percentage of visitors interested in an activity and the percentage who use that activity as the main purpose for a trip.
   
   
5. Develop platforms from which any and all local businesses and organizations can harvest a fair share of visitors drawn to the community.


6. Find ways to celebrate those entities that earn a national or regional reputation but make sure every entity is listed.
   

Vetting Mega Sports Events Is No Slam Dunk

I’m a lifelong sports fan so I understand that decisions about sports, like other components of culture, often are emotional not logical, thus the term “fanatic,” I guess.

But when groups or communities go “big game hunting” as one Mayor termed it, in search of mega-sports events, the costs and benefits have to be weighted carefully by a destination marketing organization.

Unfortunately too many destination execs get caught up in the hype or they make or are cornered into making decisions based on “who’s asking” and “to go along to get along.” But that isn’t the role of a DMO. Our job is to provide communities, regardless of who’s asking, good, solid factual cost/benefit information.

Of course, this is much harder than it sounds. Many sports fanatics can’t take any scrutiny as this is thought to be criticism, so they typically form opinions without hard information. And the pushing and shoving often begins before any thoughtful analysis can be done. More than a few community officials and news outlets, for which sports can be big business, often become co-dependent with the hype.

There can be a lot of reasons for communities to host mega-sports events but two of the reasons most often cited, creating or rehabilitating community image and driving economic impact, are not guaranteed. Here are a handful of resources that any DMO with a destination contemplating mega-events should make sure are in the mix or resources used to vet the decision.

The first research I read was done by the researchers analyzing the impact on Göteborg, Sweden following a decade when that community hosted one mega-sports event after another to promote, shape and rehabilitate image. Any impact quickly dissipated.

The second was the book Major League Losers by an economist analyzing the realities behind the claims used to justify building major sports complexes for team owners. I guess the title gives away the findings. There is also one called Sports, Jobs and Taxes.

The third was an analysis by an economist at a Florida University looking at the impact of the a mega-sports-event on cities by comparing sales tax collections on the exact dates, the year prior, year of and year after hosting the mega-event. There was hardly a blip. The event displaced as much as it generated.

The fourth was a study of the Calgary Olympics which also found that any impact rapidly dissipated unless followed by mega-events within a year to 18 months.

Now comes an evaluation by the European Tour Operators Association that hosting the Olympics can hurt rather than help a country’s tourism economy in the long run for a variety of reasons.

There are many reasons to host a sports event but the decisions on behalf of a community are complicated. Regardless of who it might upset, a destination marketing organization executive must deliver the facts and probe behind the hyperbole.

Top 10 Reasons DMO’s Aren’t Accredited

Hats off to the 100 Destination Marketing Organizations (DMO’s) that have earned accreditation. But it is hard to fathom why some haven’t pursued this distinction. Here are 10 reasons that come to mind:

1. Too “old school” to update to best practices.
   
   
2. Misperceiving it as only for very small or very large DMO's.
   
   
3. Disorganized and haven’t assigned someone to manage the project.
   
   
4. Fearful of rejection rather than view it as a diagnostic to inform improvement.
   
   
5. Too proud to ask for help or worried about revealing secrets.
   
   
6. Overestimate the work involved or failure to view it as a process.
   
   
7. Failure to grasp the importance as a signal of credibility.
   
   
8. Cronies aren’t accredited either.
   
   
9. Hoping to get in through the back door via who they know.
   
   
10. Resistant to change…the old way has worked fine all these years.