Saying "Thank You" After a Win

The 8 September 2004 edition of the Zeitgeist e-Zine

Over the past few months, we've kept you up to date on the battle to restore tourism funding in Illinois. In a nutshell, Governor Rod Blagojavich proposed slashing his State promotional budget in half in a backwards attempt to balance a portion of his deficit riddled budget. The often disparate tourism industry joined forces and brought enough pressure to bear that the Governor withdraw the proposed cuts in his final budget package that finally passed well past the June 30th deadline.

This missive isn't designed to recap the struggle (you can do that by checking past posts and the cover story in the last Zeitgeist client newsletter) but, rather, to highlight one of the most important facets in political advocacy that often goes undone...the "thank you" note.

After hard fought battles, we often congratulate each other on a job well done. But, what about those people that made the hard vote (and, for many of them, a pro-tourism vote is hard when their constituency doesn't understand)? A well-placed thank you is not only the right thing to do but helps pave the way to a more productive relationship down the line.

Visit Illinois is the industry-wide advocacy voice of tourism in the Land of Lincoln. During the budget restoration efforts, they launched a website (called VisitorsMeanJobs.com) to tell their story and, more importantly, to serve as a resource for an industry that, in many cases, wanted to communicate with elected leaders but often didn't know how. While the focus of the site has changed from "contact your legislator" to "thank your legislator," you'll see how this great tool was utilized to mobilize the faithful.

Designed by the creative team at GrahamSpencer, the site included downloadable logos, ads, radio and video. The graphic included in this communique is just one example of how they encouraged their database (via e-mail) to thank their elected leaders.

I've seen some impressive grassroots campaigns over the past couple years in Colorado and Arizona.
This is another great case study to add to the list (and stay tuned for a DMOU teleseminar on the Illinois story in the months ahead). It shows that the case CAN be made for the importance of investing in tourism promotion.

And, Illinois also reminds us to say "thank you" when we win.

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Lots of great response to our last e-newsletter on the future of the letters C-V-B. Among the more interesting takes:

AAA's Matt Lyle agreed that consumers don't know what CVB means, which is one of the reasons that they call DMOs VIOs (Visitor Information Offices).

Joe Buhler chuckled that the conversation reminded him of the intense discussions 15 years ago when he was with an organization then called Swiss National Tourist Office. "To make the issue even worse, we had to deal with the original terminology in German - "Schweizerische Verkehrszentrale" meaning "traffic or transportation" with no word of tourism)! The local city and resort entities were called equally unattractively "Fremdenverkehrsverein" or, roughly translated, "Association for foreigner traffic." I kid you not!"

Lisle (IL) CVB CEO Fran Bolson summed it up neatly when she said "the name is not in alignment with what most of us do. How much longer can we talk about how people don't understand us without looking at the very basic fact that our name doesn't help?"

More on the changes ahead in our next issue (unless breaking news dictates otherwise). E-mail Me!

Bill

ZEITGEIST CONSULTING
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