Hartford Business Journal

16 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 30, 2023 Anthony Anthony, appointed as the state's chief marketing officer in March, is also leading and retooling Connecticut's tourism efforts. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Growing Appeal Oysters, hiking trails and the arts — CT retools tourism marketing strategy as sector rebounds from pandemic year under former Office of Tourism Director Noelle Stevenson, who, without much fanfare, left her position this past summer. She was named to the role in November 2021. Anthony Anthony, appointed as chief marketing officer for the state in March, has led Connecticut's tourism efforts since Stevenson's departure. He praised her work as an excellent base from which to grow. "There has been good work over time," Anthony said. "With frequency, it starts to take root." Anthony said he isn't letting the good work of the recent past go to waste. In May, he held a series of six "listening" forums with dozens of tourism-related business operators from around the state. The input from those sessions helped Anthony and his staff craft a new tourism strategy just being finalized now, he said. Part of that strategy is to spot- light and cultivate unheralded or under-publicized strengths of the state, Anthony said. That will mean new marketing focused on the state's culinary offerings, hiking trails and "rich" arts-and-culture scene. Anthony's office has already commis- sioned a short-form documentary on Connecticut's deep ties to oysters. Expected to premier this winter and be featured in online campaigns, the documentary will highlight the state's coastal oyster-farming industry, and the use of oysters at local restaurants. "We want to make oysters to Connecticut the thing that lobsters are to Maine," Anthony said. The state's tourism and marketing office has a $4.5 million budget, up from $4.25 million last fiscal year. Since 2022, Connecticut's tourism efforts have been bolstered by an $8.8 million federal COVID-19 relief grant. Anthony said the state will draw on $3 million from the grant for tourism advertising this fiscal year; another $2 million to $3 million will be used on advertising in fiscal 2025. The state is also tightening its target audience, with new advertising focused on the 25 million potential visitors within 2.5-hours driving distance. The state has pulled back spending on farther-flung markets like Chicago, Seattle and Atlanta, Anthony said. The state earlier this month also unveiled a new $1.5 million statewide "Make It Here" marketing campaign. It highlights Connecticut's innova- tive culture and quality of life, and promotes the state as an ideal place to live, work and grow a business. By Michael Puffer mpuffer@hartfordbusiness.com D espite a steady diet of weekend rainfall throughout much of the summer, Nian- tic-based party fishing boat the Black Hawk has had an unusually good year, routinely nearing its maximum capacity of 55 to 60 anglers on twice- daily summer weekend runs. "We had more and more first- timers, even up until a couple of trips ago we had first-timers, which is really unheard-of in the fall months," veteran chief mate Claude "CJ" Adams said during an Oct. 14 trip. "There was a lot more tourism this summer: newcomers, new faces, which is nice to see." Heather Harris, a member of the family that owns the Black Hawk, said the nearly 70-foot-long boat has booked many more private charters this year than in the past, with family- and-friend groups adding to the corpo- rate-dominated trips of years past. She attributes it to the public increasingly shaking off COVID-19-inspired hesitancy. "I feel like last summer (2022), a lot of things weren't quite back to normal yet," Harris said. "But I feel like this summer, people were like: 'OK, we are back to normal.' I feel like a lot of people who hadn't been out in a couple of years are going back out." Tourism activity in Connecticut has rebounded from the COVID-19-im- posed crash of 2020 and, according to several industry measures, has even surpassed pre-pandemic perfor- mance levels. State officials and tourism opera- tors said the declining threat of the pandemic has boosted the industry. So has a renewed focus by the state on outreach and marketing, with increased funding and sharpened tactics. According to research by Tourism Economics, the first half of 2023 saw 31.8 million visits to Connecticut tourism destinations, up nearly 3% year-over-year. The research group counts visits to the state from people traveling more than 50 miles, as well as shorter trips involving overnight stays. It excludes travelers moving in a repetitive pattern, which could indi- cate work-related commuting. The formula does not include shorter-distance day trips, state officials said. Visitations in Connecticut have been trending upward since a low of 50.6 million in 2020, according to Tourism Economics. Last year's tally of 66.5 million beat out 2019 by several hundred thousand visitations. This year's numbers appear to be trending even better, state officials said. Gov. Ned Lamont, in September, trumpeted the nearly 3% bump in "visi- tation" statistics and a 10% increase in Connecticut lodging revenues. At the time, Connecticut's tourism website, CTvisit.com, had logged 7.3 million visits for the year, up 44% from the same period in 2022. "This spike in both current visits, and interest in future visits, reflects Connecticut's growing appeal," Lamont said. Tourism is a major industry in the state, supporting 120,000 jobs and $17 billion in sales in 2022, according to Tourism Economics. Renewed push, new strategy The state launched its new $3 million "Find Your Vibe" tourism campaign last CT LODGING INDUSTRY REVENUE* 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 * Totals are from the first two quarters of each year. | Source: State of CT/Tourism Economics data $700 $600 $500 $400 $300 $200 R E V E N U E I N M I L L I O N S $600M $278.5M $410.8M $600M $658.9M

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