Dann Lewis

The “I Love New York” campaign has brought many thousands of new visitors, which means more tax revenues to New York State — but individual municipalities and attractions will have to do their own work to draw those tourists through the turnstiles, Dann H. Lewis said yesterday.

Dann Lewis is justifiably proud of the campaign’s record because he originated it as deputy commissioner of New York State’s Division of Tourism. He spoke yesterday at the Rochester County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Lewis went on to say, “I would warn you that the success of the program does not mean that individual resorts and attractions should automatically expect to see more business coming in with little effort on their part. Individual attractions must continue to advertise.”
But the potential is there if they do, Dann Lewis believes. His speech cited figure after figure to show the research the division did before starting the “I Love New York” campaign and the results it has had. Among the figures Lewis cited:
* The travel industry employs 200,000 full-time in New York state and brings $6 billion per year in sales. It’s the No. 2 industry in New York. But before 1977 there had been a steady decline in the tourism budget and in New York’s market share in the Northeast.
* Research showed that outside New York City the “promotable” attractions were clearly outdoors - the lakes and mountains and unequalled scenic beauty of the state.
* New York ranked low - at 8 percent - a few years ago for “top of mind” awareness of the state. That figure has more than tripled and is growing monthly. “Even better,” Dann Lewis added, “all of this can be traced to their awareness of our advertising. Without the ads, there would have been no change at all.”
* In 1977, the first year the ads concentrated on upstate, the number of overall trips by tourists to the Northeastern states remained about the same as the previous year — stagnant — but trips to New York state increased by 24 percent. The big loser was the New England states.
Lewis figured there were over 1,850,000 individual trips to New York, conservatively estimating that the trips brought in $200 million in income and $14 million in taxes.
Dann Lewis said during the first 18 months of the campaign $10.9 million was spent for advertising and other forms of marketing. “That’s about a 6 to 1 ratio of tax dollars generated to advertising expense, a ratio I’m sure we can all live with.”
Apart from its dollar effect the campaign brought in 11 major awards, including a special Tony award. “We started out with an effective idea and it just snowballed all over the world,” Lewis said. “New Yorkers all over the state have a renewed sense of pride — we see people wearing the I Love New York buttons and putting bumper stickers on their cars. Even New York City Taxi Drivers are saying “come visit again soon” as they drop people off at the state’s metropolitan airports.
From: Rochester News, by Anne Tanner, Financial Editor

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