In tough times, leaders make tough choices. Like the City Council of Myrtle Beach did last year when it levied a 1% sales tax...and invested the proceeds into funding tourism promotion and marketing.
The results have been simply amazing...and serve as a serious wake-up call for those that a) think that room tax is the only way to fund tourism promotion and b) those who believe that reducing tourism marketing won't have a negative impact on their community.
And analysts are predicting that Myrtle Beach hotel occupancy could be at 80% by the first week of June. How can that be, given the lingering recession?
"There is a Myrtle Beach ad on TV every day somewhere," said Chamber/CVB CEO Brad Dean. "The
community has never been able to reach that kind of market."
Don't you wish you had leadership in your community that had a backbone and could make tough choices?
It has been long advocated by many consumer product marketers that by sustaining or increasing their marketing budgets in a recession they are able to increase market share. Great that Brand has been able to follow suit. Bad news for his competitors. Well done! Great case study.
Posted by: Bill Baker | May 12, 2010 at 14:45