A Place To Hang Our Hat. Fitzgerald City Council Comprehensive Tourism Plan Amendment 11/13/18

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1 A Place To Hang Our Hat Fitzgerald City Council Comprehensive Tourism Plan Amendment 11/13/18

2 We Hung It Here For Ages But It Didn t Result In Noticeable Tourism

3 After two years of work, mandated by community input, in response to Downtown drying up, we voted to go all in on a Comprehensive Tourism Plan (CTP) to change the face of Fitzgerald. COMPREHENSIVE TOURISM PLAN

4 A New Plan Called For a New Logo Including a stylized version of our chickens

5 But Moreover, It Requires Branding Section 2: Community Tourism Goals Goal 1: (Branding) Weave the disparate public/private brands found in Fitzgerald into a cohesive brand tapestry. Good Branding makes you unique and opens the door to all you offer.

6 How Did Helen Get From This To This

7 They Had Little Compared To the Tourism Product We Are Bringing On Line But They Created One Thing We Do Not Have

8 A BRAND Alpine Helen A vision of seeing Bavaria without leaving Georgia finally made the mountains worth something to them; Has proven sufficient to make folks curious about what they have to offer; Pop. 541 Trip Advisor reviews 37,500

9 By Adopting a Plan and Going All In, Despite It being crazy; It being locally unpopular; It being expensive; It being no sure thing; It risking their reputation; It bucking national chains.

10 They Could Have Played It Safe: Made their appearance standards voluntary; Spent their limited funds on something locals, instead of visitors wanted; Not demanded buy-in from the business community; But the face of their community would not have changed; 50 years later, their plan would be remembered as a ridiculous, colossal failure - if at all;

11 So Where Do We Hang Our Hat for an Instant Impression to Make People Curious About Us (and their kids want to come)? On the one thing everyone wants to see when they get here, no matter why they come

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13 We May Not All Like Them But the folks we wrote the CTP for love them; Their kids love them; So how do we take our chickens from an occasional curiosity to a unique, marketable Tourism Brand?

14 With A Signature Landmark *Actual site is yet to be determined. Photo is for illustrative purposes. This will not be site.

15 That Fits Into Our Median Park Plan And creates a centerpiece for the trails leading from all four drives.

16 The Builder Topiary Joe Kite Built the Gryphon for our recent movie, The House with a Clock On the Wall; Has work in corporate offices all over the world; Has done Topiaries for Disney World for 30 years. gallery/

17 Stats: At 62 tall, it will be the world s largest Rooster and tallest topiary Two Guinness World records; Can accommodate an interior Tiny House style apartment rentable through Airbnb which could pay for the structure within 3-5 years. Airbnb loves to feature unique accommodations at no charge to the owners. We already organize and book our local Airbnbs for tourism purposes; It can showcase our chickens, our agribusiness, and any businesses who wish to participate; It will be memorable beyond the name of where it is located.

18 It Gives Us a Unique Brand It will create curiosity to see what else we have to offer if they bring the kids to see the Rooster we will have a lot due to working our plan; Add the tiny house and it is a unique vacation destination; Add St. Matthews & the Carnegie for a unique small wedding venue and wedding photos;

19 What is the value of National Press Stories vs. Advertising? 1/6 page ad in USA Today - $57,100; 30 second spot on NBC News $23-35,000; One minute ad on Travel Channel (24 hr avg.) $1,800; 4x6 Chicago Tribune $18,120; 4x6 New York Daily News - $10,440; 4x6 St.Louis Post-Dispatch - $13,488.

20 What s It Worth to Consistently Fill Google s First 30 Hits for Free When Folks Can t Even Remember Your Name? Google ads are typically $1-2 per click, but can be high as $50 the ad is just one hit and can easily be overlooked; Our new web site has received 99,435 unique visits since launch in late December; Ad driven by per click that traffic would have cost us $149,152 for just over ten months. Google small town with big things, or any close variation and your first several pages of free hits are on

21 Casey, Illinois

22 Casey, Illinois Featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NBC Nightly News, Travel Channel, 100 Things to Do In America Before You Die, Travel articles in U.S. & abroad, including those above; Population Trip Advisor reviews in seven years; Began big items 2011 in response to Downtown drying up; Eight Guinness World Records None intrinsically connected to the town; Feature page on Illinois Tourism Department Website; Supports 18 locally owned specialty shops and restaurants up from virtually none in More being built; On Saturday you can t even come thru town it s so packed. Big Things Small Town (Their Brand)

23 Casey s $38.00 T-Shirt

24 Comparable Casey Items Wind Chime 56 tall; Chair - 56 tall; Pitchfork 60 long.

25 If Someone Googles Small Town With Big Chicken, a Year From Now, Who Will They See? Today We get six of first 30 hits for Wild Chickens; We get three of first 30 for Civil War Museum; These results are algorithmically adjusted to be relevant when searching from Fitzgerald; Helen gets 29 of the first 30 for Alpine town in Georgia; Casey, IL gets the first 24 hits when searching small town with big things, still adjusted for relevancy to Fitzgerald.

26 So Where Do We Hang Our Hat? Since 1999, no branding scheme has materialized to load up Google s first three search pages with Fitzgerald; Not one new business has opened to cater to tourists since we started; Prior to our new CTP in 2018, we easily averaged $10-15,000/year in tourism advertising; At three times Casey s size, we have a third the Trip Advisor reviews in 18 years they have in 7;

27 So Where Do We Hang Our Hat? (2) We and virtually the rest of the state brand on the same tired state suggestions and expect to somehow pull away from the pack; We are unique with respect to a CTP building critical mass for people to find. But we have to become unique to the outside world for them to find us; We finally have a branding opportunity to cut our own trail, like Helen and Casey. That s where we need to hang our hat.

28 Pertinent Facts: Sales tax revenues have failed to meet projections since 2007; Outside of Tourism, few other expenditures have a chance to change the trend and provide a return on investment; Despite the return of manufacturing jobs, Downtown and retail as a whole are still hurting; Industrial growth helps the tax digest but boosts retail and sales tax much slower than putting bodies in stores and restaurants.

29 Will They Come? In 2000, we brought over 6,000 people here for one day; It was the third year of the Blues Festival; Tags were counted from 64 counties in Georgia, 13 states, and Canada; We spent about $25K per year on the festival each year we held it; It was considered a phenomenal success by any standards; But we had no brand for the other 364 days of the year.