🔒$1.2M marketing campaign part of plan to jump-start CT’s tourism industry

When Randy Fiveash first arrived in Connecticut about 13 years ago to lead the state’s tourism office he was handed a $1 marketing budget to promote the state.

It wasn’t a joke, either. The situation got so bad that Connecticut was left off a map on a website that promoted New England as a tourism destination.

Things are better today, even in the middle of a pandemic. The state has a dedicated funding stream to promote tourism with a marketing budget around $4.3 million.

Fiveash said helping put in place that dedicated revenue stream — 10% of hotel room occupancy tax revenue funds tourism promotion — was one of his accomplishments as the state’s tourism director. He recently announced his retirement from the job and worked his last day April 1.

Before leaving office, top tourism industry officials — including Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation Chairman Rodney Butler — threw him a virtual retirement party. That reflects the impact he’s had on a sector that grew into a $15.5 billion industry that employed 123,000 people, pre-pandemic.

Fiveash said he had been contemplating retirement for years and might have stepped away sooner if the pandemic didn’t hit. COVID-19 changed his plans and devastated an industry he’s worked his entire life to promote and build up.

In fact, the state’s leisure and hospitality sector shed nearly 60% of its jobs last spring during the height of the pandemic.

But Fiveash said he sees a strong rebound in the months ahead and he’s got some data to back it up.

The Connecticut Office of Tourism recently launched a new, proprietary research program that collects monthly data on Northeast-based consumers including who is likely to travel, when, and what would motivate them to visit a specific business.

According to the latest Tourism Insights Program report published in March, 41% of consumers surveyed said they plan to take a leisure trip in the next three months, while 54% said they plan to take a trip in the next six months.

Meantime, 63% said that shortly after they receive a COVID-19 vaccine, they will feel comfortable engaging in a range of tourism activities, including seeing live performances, attending festivals and enjoying indoor attractions.

Given that potentially brighter outlook, Fiveash, a Georgia native who has worked tourism jobs in six states, said now is a better time for him to move on. But he’s not leaving the scene entirely.

He said he wants to continue to teach tourism and marketing to college students — he’s been an adjunct faculty member at Central Connecticut State University for the last few years — and provide consulting services to venues and nonprofit organizations in need of marketing and promotion help.

Eventually he and his wife, Shari, plan to move back South.

Before he left his tourism post, Fiveash participated in a Q&A with the Hartford Business Journal. Here’s what he had to say.

Q: How much of an impact did COVID have on the state’s tourism industry?

At least 20% to 25% of the jobs that were lost in the state were tourism-related jobs. The industry has a lot of recovery to make up. We do see that it is coming back. There were about 1,300 new leisure and hospitality-related jobs in January, which is a slow time of year, so we see some recovery.

Q: The spring and summer are typically the height of the tourism season in Connecticut. How much of a recovery do you anticipate in the months ahead?

We haven’t put a number on it but we see a strong recovery. It won’t be a 100% recovery but we think it’s going to be robust.

The state is planning to launch a marketing campaign that will run from May 1 to September 8. We are going to have TV in Connecticut and traditional advertising including digital. It’s going to be targeted advertising.

Q: What can you tell us about the theme of the marketing campaign?

The state Office of Tourism will reveal the theme very shortly but it will be a $1.2 million marketing campaign — a little bit more than last year.

There will be a key change from previous campaigns. In a normal year the marketing program would have been 80% focused on out-of-state consumers and 20% in-state consumers. This year, it’s going to be 50-50.

The reason for that is 81% of Northeast consumers say they feel more comfortable traveling only 100 miles away from their home, according to our latest Tourism Insights Program report. In-state folks have all this pent-up demand for travel but they don’t want to go to Florida or Texas or Tennessee. So we want to make sure residents here in Connecticut see the tourism opportunities that exist in their own backyard.

We will have in-state TV and the other 50% will be targeting New York and the Boston area.

Q: So given that people may be inclined to travel less distance for vacation this year, do you anticipate 2021 will be the year of the staycation?

I think it will. Things like international travel will come back but that’s going to take longer. But even travel from here to the South is going to be tougher for a while, so most people are going to stay here within that 100 miles radius.

Staycation used to mean someone is just going to take a day trip. What’s going to happen I think is people are going to stay overnight somewhere local, or stay for a couple days. Even a staycation is different than it used to be.

Q: What’s the biggest change in the tourism industry that you’ve seen during your career?

I’ve been in six different states over the years and most of my experience has been in running convention and visitor bureaus around the country and I think technology is probably what has changed the industry the most.

Just in the 13 years I’ve been in Connecticut, we’ve revamped the tourism website, which now has 7 million visits a year. We also launched and beefed up social media.

The most important thing I think I’ve helped develop in the state’s tourism industry is a data-driven, research-based, results-oriented marketing program. It wasn’t here before. Everything we do now is based on data and research and that includes our website, which now has 5,000 Connecticut tourism businesses on it.

Q: How has the pandemic changed the tourism industry?

I think what it has done is change the way people travel and look at travel. People look at it as something that is of great value and something they need to do from a psychological standpoint or as part of their lifestyle. It’s a release and it’s something they need as part of their family structure.

I think that shows the importance of the tourism industry coming out of the pandemic.

Q: How important is business travel to the tourism industry?

Business travel is hugely important to the tourism industry and it has been hugely impacted by the pandemic.

The Convention Center in Hartford, all the business travel that comes to the casinos and all the hotels, that’s all been hit hard by the pandemic. The other part of business travel is that when a convention or meeting comes to town, people aren’t just going to stay in the hotels or convention center. They are going to go out to the restaurants and go see the attractions, the theaters and all the ancillary kinds of things.

So everybody has been hurt. It’s going to be really tough to get back.

What has happened during COVID is that companies and organizations realized they can do meetings, especially small meetings online, or in a hybrid model. Just like in corporate real estate where you have companies saying they don’t need as much office space as they used to because more workers are working from home.

It’s the same kind of thing.

Q: What’s the next leisure trip you are planning?

My wife and I are beach people so we love the Connecticut shore but we also love the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We, like many people in the country, haven’t seen our family in a while so hopefully this summer we can do that as well.

Q: What’s a hidden gem tourism destination in the state?

I think there are a lot of hidden gems in Connecticut. One of the things I like to do is seek out small towns. These little town greens where there is shopping and restaurants, beautiful churches, etc. A lot of these small towns have a lot of history and it’s interesting to search it out or experience it.