Dann Lewis

“The incomparable, the brilliant star city of cities … the Egyptian paradox, the inferno with no out of bounds, the supreme expression of both the miseries and splendors of contemporary civilization … it stays up all night. But it also becomes a small town when it rains.”
— John Gunther

Guess which city Gunther was talking about. (And it ain’t Cairo).
New York City. Of course. And if the new tourism push for that center of theater, art, fashion and debt pays off, the city will be even more vital with cash flow and consuming celebrants.
The promotion began here yesterday when the award-winning commercial spotlighting Broadway characters in “I Love New York” vignettes started hitting the airwaves in Tampa and across Florida. In a cooperative venture, National Airlines and the NY State Department of Commerce have packaged a number of tours designed with the best of marketing methodology in mind, making available in easy form a number of hotel-and-theater packages for traveling to The City.
Broadway, the commerce department found in its marketing research, is what people want but have found difficult to master on their own. The ease of booking is proving most appealing.
And Broadway isn’t all New York State is selling. “We’ve packaged 20 ski areas for sale this winter,” said Dann Lewis, deputy commissioner and director of tourism for New York. “These are just the beginning steps,” said Lewis. Lewis feels New York has just gotten its hands on a marketing bonanza.
Dann Lewis came to the commerce department from a position as director of tourism for the Virgin Islands. Tourism had declined considerably during the early 70’s there, he described, until an approach similar to New York’s new undertaking took effect. “The government decided to develop tourism on a professional platform” Lewis explained’ “I was brought in in late ‘75 as the first tourism director of the Virgin Islands, to put together a professionally staffed tourism organization. I am very happy to say that the U. S. Virgin Islands just celebrated its best year in history.” Dann Lewis went on to say “It shows even an area that has been going downhill, if government recognized the importance of the tourism industry and makes a commitment to tap into the tremendous return on investment in a professional way … puts a reasonable budget behind it and then operates it as a business, rather than a haven for political appointees, you can accomplish a great deal.”

That’s the approach in a nutshell. Professionalism. New York’s commerce department began with marketing research which indicated they should be packaging Broadway. Now the department is hiring professionals to move around the state into regional offices where they will help tourism entities such as hotels and attractions put together packages to be sold throughout the United States and abroad.

“Bundling together tourism accommodations, meals, attractions, transfers and transportation, has been done in Europe for decades,” Dann Lewis said. “The U. S. is probably 30 years behind Europe in tourism development. Many more people in Europe travel across county borders than they do in the states. There are very well developed tour programs and the charter business is very well defined. Fifty percent of intra-Europe air traffic is tour; in the U. S. that’s four percent of domestic. The room for growth here is obviously tremendous. Some of the vast changes in the regulation of the airline industry today, are going to lend credence to what has existed in Europe for years.”

Dann Lewis sees New York in the lead with this tourism development. New York State in the past 15 months has gone from 50th, to first in tourism expenditures; and has recognized this industry as a major economic engine that fuels all of New York’s economy. And it is. And that’s pretty lovable, right?

From: The Tampa Times by Nelda Clemmons

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