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Music, Meals, Magic
and More
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Tourism
officials exploit market niches to attract visitors to area.
By William Poe
When it comes to tourism in the St. Louis region, some of the major
league players are well known: the Gateway Arch, Union Station,
the St. Louis Cardinals, the St. Louis Zoo, the gambling boats,
and America’s Center.
But when it comes to driving the region’s second largest industry,
even the smaller players are an important part of the big league
team and contribute mightily to its success. Some pinch hitters
include:
- Historic
South Main Street
in St. Charles
- Shrine
of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville
- Six
Flags Amusement Park
- Cahokia
Mounds State Park
- Eagles
and Pelicans near Alton
- The
Missouri Botanical Garden
- The
Museum of Transportation
- Gateway
International Raceway
- The
Butterfly House
- The
Blues (music)
- The
Hill
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If variety is
the spice of life, then visitors to St. Louis must be one spiced
up bunch.
“There is a wonderful assortment of destinations and things to do
in the area,” says Mark A. Westhoff, president and chief executive
officer of the Southwestern Illinois Tourism & Convention Bureau.
“You’d be surprised how many people flock to the region to walk
up Monk’s Mound, attend a race at Gateway International and even
walk the streets of Columbia, Ill. to experience the German culture.”
In fact, 64 percent of St. Louis visitors surveyed by the St. Louis
Convention & Visitors Commission said they came to the area “because
of the variety of things to see and do,” says Carole Moody, vice
president of marketing for the commission. “That says we have a
big product that is constantly changing and reinventing itself.”
Partly based on the results of visitor surveys and focus groups,
the commission has launched a marketing campaign that specifically
promotes the wide variety of attractions in the region. The campaign,
called “Explore St. Louis—There’s More than Meets the Arch,” promotes
restaurants, music and nightlife, and cultural attractions.
“We also found people who were familiar with the Arch and maybe
knew of one or two other attractions but had no idea of the wealth
of attractions or the culture we have in St. Louis,” Moody says.
“We discussed what we wanted to tell visitors that we know is true
and that we can easily defend. Music and nightlife is very strong
in St. Louis where we have a very profound musical heritage and
more working blues musicians than anywhere else in the world.
We have so many unique restaurants that other cities just can’t
match, and we have top-rank cultural and sports attractions. We
have the Zoo, the Science Center, family attractions, the Magic
House, Six Flags...the list goes on and on.”
On the other side of the Mississippi, Southwestern Illinois promoters
hawk attractions as diverse as Carlyle Lake, the Shrine of Our Lady
of the Snows in Belleville, the Cahokia Mounds State Park and archeological
site, Gateway International Raceway, golf and bicycling destinations,
German ethnic heritage towns, and French heritage sites including
Fort de Chartres and Prairie du Rocher, says Westhoff whose bureau
is responsible for tourism in most of eight Illinois counties.
"We call it the ‘Other Half of St. Louis,” but I also call
it ‘The Exciting Half of St. Louis,’” says Westhoff who can’t help
but fire a shot across the bow of the much larger and better funded
tourism bureau across the river. “St. Louis has the Galleria, but
I bet you didn’t know that the Fairview Heights, Ill. shopping area
has the largest number of retail shops in one location between Indianapolis
and California.”
Westhoff adds: “Southwestern Illinois now is an established destination
in its own right. People come from all over to enjoy attractions
that local residents often take for granted. Fabulous heritage areas,
rich historic sites, great hunting, fishing, parks, museums, shopping,
religious shrines and sites, and gaming are just a few attractions
that underscore the diversity of Southwestern Illinois.”
A former industrial marketer, Westhoff acknowledges that he is an
aggressive promoter, and who can blame him? Hospitality and tourism
is BIG business. The economic impact of conventions, meetings and
tourism is second only to that of health care in the region, say
Westhoff and Moody. For the entire state of Missouri, only manufacturing
outranks tourism in economic impact, Moody adds.
Operating with a slim $900,000 operating budget, Westhoff says his
bureau generated more than $600 million in economic impact in 1999
and should show significantly better results when the year 2000
numbers are tabulated.
The St. Louis bureau in year 2000 spent more than $12 million to
attract 7.5 million visitors who spent an estimated $2.5 billion,
Moody says. The number of visitors is one million more than 1998
when 6.4 million visitors came to St. Louis, she adds.
More than 53,000 regional workers are employed in the hospitality
industry, officials say. Eight thousand workers support tourism
in Southwestern Illinois, Westhoff adds.
Westhoff markets to residents of the region’s smaller cities, such
as Paducah and Terre Haute while the St. Louis bureau’s target markets
for leisure travelers include second-tier cities such as Evansville,
Louisville, Des Moines, Memphis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and
the Quad Cities of Davenport, Bettendorf, Rock Island and Moline.
The St. Louis bureau solicits nationally for meeting and convention
business. This year, St. Louis will host 32 citywide conventions
(defined as groups that use 1,000 or more hotel rooms on peak nights)
using 336,100 hotel room nights, Moody says. As the area’s inventory
of hotel rooms expands by 20 percent over the next few years with
the addition of the convention center hotel—Renaissance Grand Hotel
and Renaissance Suites—and others, the city’s convention activity
is expected to grow to 56 citywide conventions using 490,000 room
nights by 2005, Moody says.
“Demand will be increasing significantly with the addition
of that hotel and others,” she adds.
Additional hotel space, along with new meeting facilities at venues
such as the old Westport Playhouse, are also serving to increase
competition among hospitality providers.
“It’s going to be more competitive, and it’s going
to be tougher for people in our business to keep up,” says
Steve O’Loughlin, director of operations for Lodging Hospitality
Management, which purchased two Sheraton hotels at West Port Plaza
last year. “But the customers coming in will receive a better
product.”
William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St. Louis
advertising and marketing communications firm. |
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