ADF IS WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD

We’re spoiled in Durham. Sure we have to work extra hard to overcome the underlying current of negativity driven by some negative word of mouth artists in nearby communities and counties.

But my theory is a lot of that negativity is sheer envy with a little intolerance mixed in, and a dash of ignorance. Durham has arguably more going for it than any place in this State and for its size nationwide.

Look at the accolades for proof…community as a whole, healthcare facilities and practitioners, universities, research parks, musicians, hotels, dancers, museums, restaurants, historic preservation…the list is overwhelming.

Leveraging them as part of telling the Durham story is an obvious “must.” But there needs to be more. We need to find ways to help these things continue to thrive and reach new levels of excellence.

Some of them can’t relocate but some can. We can’t take any of them for granted, let alone assume excellence is guaranteed. Gems like ADF can disappear in a heartbeat, as can Full Frame Documentary Film Festival to name just two. Putting on a festival like these is a full time job for scores of people. Durham needs to make it easier for them to secure sponsorship.

The payoff when told as part of the Durham story is publicity like this article in the New York Times, one of several during the season.

Pure gold!

The Big 2-0

In five months the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau will turn 20. The governing board commenced January 17, 1989 when the late H.C. Cranford called the meeting to order and then began to search to find me as Chief Executive. This anniversary will particularly be meaningful and fun to celebrate.

Durham commenced destination marketing an average of 20 to 30 years later than its competition. But several strategies have helped us close some of the gaps in what they call “share of mind.”

One was aggressively deploying technology. Another was deploying research driven decisions and a wide range of performance measures right from the get-go. And maybe most important, adopting the credo of “continuing and never-ending improvement” and innovation.

We’re hard on ourselves at DCVB and that’s part of the culture…but I can tell you we’ll come up for air and do some celebrating when DCVB turns 20.

COMMUNITIES ARE IRRELEVANT?

I was told recently by an influential person that anyone who has moved to Durham or other communities in the Triangle after I did nearly 20 years ago doesn’t care about cities, just the region. I think they were trying to hurt my feelings:)

Seriously, one of the crucial elements of community marketing is to keep track of how residents characterize where they live because one of the first principles of marketing is don’t market a brand you can’t deliver. That’s why we encourage people to reserve the term Raleigh-Durham as the name of the jointly owned airport. When it comes to destination communities, there simply is “no such place.”

In the mid ‘90’s, DCVB picked up a question that a newspaper and television station first asked in the early ‘90’s on a survey and had polling professionals repeated it periodically.

Even though 40% of Durham’s population is new to the community since 1990, people continue to have very close ties to the community’s identity. In the scientific poll taken this past May/June, nearly 80% characterize where they live by the city or county of Durham and only just a little over 20% use the region or Triangle as one big area. The percentage has hardly varied and other survey questions have confirmed over the years that even people who think of the region, don’t define it as one big area but as a series of distinct communities.

It isn’t just Durham either. The percentage of people in Orange County preferring a specific city or town or county to characterize where they live is 77% and in Wake County 76%. This doesn’t mean of course that people aren’t proud of the Triangle or the State or the Southeastern United States or the US of A. It just means that when it comes to where people live, communities are communities and they are still very relevant.

None of this fazes those who hope by sheer repetition to argue otherwise though. I think they are caught in the trap of arguing that communities must be irrelevant in order for the region to be relevant, kind of either/or thinking. But those of us in destination community marketing must base decisions on sound research vs. force of will.

WHY DURHAM WANTS A 1% PREPARED FOOD LEVY

As with anything political, this is bound to get a little convoluted over the next few months.

Durham won approval yesterday from the General Assembly to hold a voter referendum on a 1% levy on prepared food. DCVB did some heavy lifting on this over a 17 year period so there has been oodles of discussion and consensus. So why did we take so long after Raleigh/Wake County, Charlotte/Mecklenburg, Dare, Fayetteville/Cumberland and even the little town of Hillsborough assessed this levy?

One, Durham took a good deal more time to discuss and evaluate the “uses.” We didn’t just go after the tax because others have it. We first became aware of the power of this tax during a failed attempt in Wake County to lure the Durham Bulls to relocate in Raleigh.

Why does the state advocacy group for restaurants and hotels adamantly oppose Durham’s and yet helped facilitate Raleigh and Charlotte’s which are not nearly as well used to the benefit of these businesses? Hard to say but there was a political “sea change” and the group has been stuck in a “no” position across the board for many years.

We kept them apprised as Durham’s hospitality sector actually helped shape support for and the uses for the 1% levy here. I serve on Statewide tourism panels and they were all kept apprised during the evolution of Durham’s proposal. They are probably admiring of how thoughtful it is but political forces there are stuck on “no” and Durham had to move on to a more progressive, win/win approach.

Instead of finding a tax and dreaming up uses, Durham, and particularly DCVB, has been long concerned about Durham’s sense of place. Our cultural landscape is eroding because the donation model no longer works and it isn’t fair to place all of the burden just on property taxpayers. Our community’s curb appeal has eroded as budget cuts found it easy to lop off cleanup efforts.
We have a booming visitor sector, particularly in culinary arts , an award winning Durham Careers In Hospitality program in the public schools and a great full degree program at NCCU. But we need culinary labs at places like NCCU and Durham Tech and a lot of workforce training to remain viable as a visitor destination.

We need a way to fund cultural, recreational and civic facilities and programs that doesn’t rely solely on property taxes. The 1% prepared food levy will be spread over all tax payers who consume prepared food and 40% will be generated by visitors and non-resident commuters. This is much fairer to Durham taxpayers.

And finally, we needed to broaden the burden of self-funding visitor promotion to include day trippers rather than continuing to rely only on a third of the room occupancy tax which places the burden on just 60 businesses and 20% of our visitors to fuel tourism growth for 3,000 businesses and organizations.

Durham has a remarkable story to tell and DCVB needs to have the resources competitors do in order to get the community on a list for consideration and overcome a hurdle most other destinations don’t have, overcoming an underlying current of negativity in nearby communities.

So linked are the uses in a more concise way but I thought it was important for you to get a little bit of the background.

More to come I’m sure.

DÉJÀ VU – WAR OF THE WORLDS

I just turned 60, but I’m far too young to remember first-hand when Orson Wells broadcast a fictional account of an invasion from outer space, so real that it caused panic in the streets. Unfortunately, the news reports and analysts covering things like the price of oil, the housing crisis, etc., are causing a similar upheaval.

The dramatic radio landing of aliens took place in a New Jersey park. Today there is a very “real’ monument to the invasion in the park noted in the drama. It was all based on an H.G. Wells novel, as was the film version three years ago.

News reporters and editors don’t appear to grasp how much public confidence plays into the financial markets. How careless reporting can stampede people. Or how self-fulfilling news reporting can be when obsessed with what Dr. Barry Glassner documented as the “Culture of Fear.” Market and consumer confidence, like self-confidence can be very fragile.

I’m sure the folks doing the reporting have 401K’s and children to put through school. But I sense, if not outright glee, then a stubborn tête-à-tête each morning as reporters dance with experts in a kind of “yes it is,“ “no it isn’t” dialogue with no big picture perspective, driving apprehension with every new tidbit.

But the risk here isn’t failure to understand or lack of awareness or access to information….the risk to all of us is when the news media doesn’t merely report the news but begins to seem vested in trying to “be right” or “sustain” a story, then our shallowed “freedom of the press” comes with a terrible financial risk to all of us.

So if you’re a reporter or editor pumping the price of gas story…or the mortgage loan crisis…or the health of the financial sector…keep in mind the speculation generated might just be creating the story…so we have stories fueling more stories…far beyond what the facts support. Are we truly benefitting…will we be better off?

The news media is going through some major transformations right now. And one of them is by a growing number of responsible journalists who take responsibility for the sheer weight and intensity created not by “bigger” or more important stories…but by the sheer weight and intensity of so many enterprises covering the news.