State exploring ways to increase tourism

State tourism officials are trying to figure out how to convince people that travel isn’t a luxury but a necessity.

The move is more than just fishing about for different tactics to get travelers to part with their money in Arizona. It represents what the Arizona Office of Tourism figures is the best way to deal with the reality that consumer confidence continues to bump along the bottom and people are holding onto their dollars a lot tighter.

Tourism official: Cheap rooms aren't enough

And AnnDee Johnson, the agency’s director of research and strategic planning, said all indications are it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

She said unemployment, both nationally and in Arizona, continues to rise. That affects not only those who are newly without jobs but also feeds fears by those who still have them that they could be next.

That, in turn, is reflected in new figures that show consumer savings in May were up 1.4 percent over the same period a year earlier. More to the point, that savings rate reached a 15-year high.

But in an industry dependent on people having disposable income, that’s not a good thing.

“It’s the new 'normal,’” Johnson said. And that, she said, means having to find new ways to get would-be travelers to spend more and save a little bit less.

“We have to position travel as a necessity,” she said. That means stressing the importance of the physical and psychological benefits of travel.

“Just getting away, just being able to de-stress is something that travel really does bring,” Johnson said.

That lesson is playing heavily into the new campaign being launched by the agency, dubbed “Free to Be.”

Sherry Henry, the state tourism director, said the focus is asking people to decide, in essence, what they want to be when they travel.

“Do you want to be educated? Do you want to be with family? Do you want to be awed by nature?” she explained.

“Do you want to be entertained? Do you want to be passionate? Do you want to be romantic?” Henry continued. “It’s designed to allow the traveler to choose kind of what they want to be.”

That new focus on leisure travel is becoming more important as business travel continues to fall off.

In 2008, Arizona recorded about 26.1 million “overnight” domestic visitors, those from within the United States who spent at least one night in a hotel. That is down about 3.3 percent from the prior year.

But overnight business travel dropped 7.6 percent, to 6.3 million visitors.

Johnson calls it “the demonization of business travel.” More simply, Johnson said it has been referred to as “the AIG effect,” referring to the negative publicity after that insurance giant — which had been bailed out by the federal government — spent more than $440,000 for a weeklong California retreat for executives, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and close to $23,000 in spa charges.

“A lot of companies, even ones that could legitimately say, 'This is not part of the bailout and we need to do this,’ have canceled business meetings and conferences in many places because of the fear of looking like being frivolous,” Johnson said.

That focus on casual travelers is taking shape in other ways.

One deals with the fact that the agency, whose budget has been cut twice in the last two years by the Legislature, has only about $5 million to spend on advertising. So it is narrowing its focus on just a few markets rather than spreading the limited cash around.

At this point target cities include Chicago, Los Angeles and Denver, with the possible additions of New York City and Seattle.

“We’re trying to whittle down and decide, particularly from our statistics, where are the fish biting?” Henry said. “Let’s try to throw a pole in the areas where the fish are.”

Along the same lines, there is an interest in snagging travelers from markets farther away from Arizona. The presumption is these people will spend more per capita, as they will stay in hotels and rent a car.

And that helps the third goal.

“If they travel farther to get here, they tend to stay longer,” Johnson said.

“And they tend to be doing things that cause them to spend money,’’ she continued. “And that’s what we want.”