This week on Cornichon: an extended look at the business of tourism.
In Austin, Texas, this summer, as the legislature was debating budget cuts, the knives were out for the state's Economic Development & Tourism Division. A million here, a million there, and funding for tourism promotion in the Lone Star State was trimmed to $5 million. It looked as if the tourism promotion campaign, "Texas: It's Like a Whole Other Country," was in danger of disappearing altogether in Gov. Rick Perry's austerity budget. Yet, by coincidence, the governor's wife, Anita Perry, had been invited to address the Texas Travel Industry Association's annual convention.
She told the 800 assembled delegates that she'd become convinced of the spiritual and emotional benefits of travel. "That's the story I'm taking home," she said. (More on the Perry family's romance here.)
She was preaching to the choir. "State tourism promotion is a program that lawmakers and budget writers should cherish, nourish and protect, because it's a self-funding program that generates far more revenue that it consumes," the tourism association's president, David Teel, told local reporters. He said that for every dollar Texas spends on tourism marketing, $7 comes back in state tax revenue.
Anita Perry's line of thinking eventually met with approval at the spiritually aware Perry household. And so funding was restored: over $31 million in 2012, $33 million in 2013.
Bob Lander, president of the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, was happy. "We're extremely excited," he said. "Here in Texas, the Legislature understands the return on investment that tourism provides."
Next episode: Why did the wimps in Olympia kill off Washington's underfunded tourism department?
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