TV Ad Campaign Brings Flurry of Tourist Inquiries

The $100,000 TV campaign drew roughly 2,500 calls for information on Maine vacation spots.

Janice Fortin had already planned a vacation in New Hampshire when she saw an ad on television showcasing Maine's beauty. She called the 800 number for more information and is now putting together a camping trip to Maine for later this summer. "It did its job," Fortin said of the advertising.

Maine tourism officials readily admit that the state lags behind many others in tourism promotion. They believe the lack of money for marketing is to blame for the slow growth of the state's tourism industry in the '90's.

"Maine is 25 to 30 years behind the rest of the country into getting into this business," said Dann Lewis, the state's director of tourism. "We've relied on the drive market for so long that Maine has not had the kind of growth other states have had." Dann Lewis said the state needs to break out of a rut of modest spending increases of the last few years and be more aggressive in attracting tourists and their money - and to decrease Maine's reliance on drive-ins.

Dann Lewis's 1997-98 budget was more than doubled, to $3.8 million for the first year of a five-year plan to bolster the state's tourism industry. The five Maine television ads that ran for a month beginning in late May represent a key part of the new strategy that may be expanded next year if the early promising results hold up. The ads ran on stations in Boston, Providence and Hartford, and ran regionally on the Arts and Entertainment and Discovery cable channels. They also ran for two weeks in Montreal.

"We're going after people who were probably thinking of going to Colorado, West Virginia or the white Mountains", Dann Lewis said.

From: Portland Press Herald, July 6, 1977 by Edward D. Murphy