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Bangor MetroMetro Guide

Q: What can Maine do better to promote tourism?

Sean Faircloth

Truth is, I’m no bird lover. I’ve never felt the urge to stand in a wet field and watch them. I love my children, though. I don’t see my children and birds having much in common—except both have pointed the way to sustainable tourism opportunities for Bangor and Maine.

In 1996, my sons Brendan and Ryan had a great time at a children’s museum we visited in another state. I wondered about starting an interactive children’s museum in downtown Bangor. It could be a destination for school field trips, serve cabin-feverish parents during Maine winters—and lure out-of-state license plates to downtown Bangor, plates usually drawn to a three-mile strip along Maine’s oceanfront.

I brought the idea to Partnerships for Healthy Communities. PHC voted to serve as the project’s umbrella organization, appointing me project director. Five years later (including hundreds of presentations and volunteers, and millions of dollars), Maine Discovery Museum opened. In February 2001, there were 25 children’s museums in New England. Bangor’s Maine Discovery Museum was often rated “best.” My involvement led me to strong conclusions about tourism policy:

1) Know the unique, positive experience you offer;
2) Make your target market aware of this unique experience.

Birds: In 2003, I talked with a scientist who participated in the Maine Wildlife Resource Assessment. He said the assessment concluded that Penjajawoc Marsh hosted more endangered and special concern species than any of the 106 Maine marshes studied since 1998. Despite its proximity to the ever-expanding Bangor mall area, over 180 species of birds have been sighted in the marsh.

That’s unique. States like Texas and New Mexico make millions of tourist dollars from bird-watchers. They offer birds no more exciting than ours. These states invested in boardwalks over wetlands, built and maintained bird blinds, drew in bird-watchers with highway signs, and targeted advertising to out-of-state birders.

In 2003, I introduced a bill directing the State Tourism Natural Resources Committee to plan for wildlife-viewing tourism, particularly bird-watching, identify locations in Maine appropriate for nature-based tourism, create marketing and promotion strategies, and propose infrastructure improvements such as marsh boardwalks, highway signs, and bird blinds.

This year, Rep. Dave Miramant of Rockland is taking these ideas to another level, sponsoring a bill seeking funding for a grant program allowing nonprofits such as Bangor’s chamber of commerce to promote tourism that supports a collaboration with the UMaine system to craft the best tourism techniques, and makes sound investments in advertising. Dave Miramant thinks nature-based and experiential tourism (kayaking, hiking, bird-watching) are part of Maine’s unique offering. Rep. Bob Duchesne is a bird-watching expert and has mapped a gold mine in bird-watching opportunities.

I won’t do much bird-watching myself, but we’re leaving money on the table if we’re not leading the way to a future that elevates Maine as a unique positive tourism opportunity, be it bird blinds or children’s museums. It’s an investment that will help keep my sons in Maine—or at least get them to land here for frequent visits.

Rep. Sean Faircloth is Majority Whip of the Maine House. He is serving his third consecutive term representing the people of Bangor in District 17.

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Scott K Fish

I expand this month’s question, asking colleagues experienced in Maine tourism:

• Should state government promote tourism? Would we see better results enabling private sector tourism to self-promote?
• Would raising the meals/lodging tax 3% help, hurt, or have a neutral impact on tourism?

First, we need to know if current state tourism spending shows measurable results. That’s a challenge.

Maine website developer Lance Dutson’s blog is devoted, in part, to Maine tourism. You may remember Dutson’s name in the news last year when he was sued by a New York ad agency hired to create a Maine tourism ad by Maine government. The agency’s rough-draft ad, posted on the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development website, included a phone number—to a phone sex service! Dutson posted the ad on his blog, blasting the incompetence. The lawsuit was soon dropped.

Dutson says Maine tourism data comes from Maine Turnpike traffic, the sales tax, and “visitor research” reports by Longwoods International. He says he’s skeptical of data from a governor who “seems concerned with issuing stats as public relations games” rather than as information, though he admits that Longwoods “has a pretty good reputation.” He’s also skeptical of the Maine Office of Tourism claim that “we have this 8-to-1 return on investment. If you could get an 8-to-1 investment on something, you’d pump money into it until you were a billionaire.”

Dutson agrees Maine must promote itself, but not more state spending on tourism marketing. He believes Maine is better off spending money on economic development. His fiscal solution for upping tourism? “Get rid of the meals/lodging tax.”

Dan Billing is former president of the Maine Tourism Association (MTA), the industry group which runs the Maine tourism info centers. Billing doesn’t favor increasing the meals/lodging tax. “It would reduce the money tourists have to spend in Maine.”

His idea for improving tourism marketing is: “Turn it over to the MTA.”

“Martin” from asmainegoes.com worked in Maine advertising. “I’d rather see individual businesses promote reasons to visit Maine,” he said. “For-profit businesses will do a better job—with smaller budgets—than the state ever could.”

Martin and Dutson think Maine should hire in-state ad agencies.

“Hiring out-of-state ad agencies to promote Maine tourism,” Martin says, “is like the Texas Cattlemen’s Association serving chicken at their annual dinner. A $2–$4 million ad account is HUGE for a Maine agency. You’ll have the company president, the top writers, and most experienced artists giving it their best efforts.”

Billings thinks “Maine businesses should compete for business. I see no reason people from Maine would have any special advantage or skill at reaching people from away.”

Me? I’m okay with Maine promoting Maine. But why should government promote tourism over other Maine industries? Government should focus on economic development so tourism can promote itself. Our 7% meals/lodging tax was a “temporary” tax (1991). It’s still here. Lower it.

If state government funds tourism, anyone should be able to compete for the contracts. Maine has the talent to win.

Scott K Fish is owner/editor of www.asmainegoes.com, a conservative political forum. He explained the site’s innerworkings as a recent guest on the Maine Public Broadcasting show MaineWatch.

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