Stay to Stay — the Vermont state tourism agency’s planned series of four weekends in different locations designed with the intent of turning tourists into full-time residents — got off to a “chilly start” this weekend according to Vtdigger.com: Like the recent weather, the first-blush level of commitment for the state’s campaign to entice nonresidents to move to Vermont has been cool.
Organizers note, however, that this is but the first of four scheduled weekends for people interested in becoming Vermonters to be formally welcomed as part of the Stay-to-Stay initiative.
Think! Vermont, Scott’s Department of Economic Development promotional webpage slogan, describes the events in terms not unlike a vacation timeshare real estate sales pitch weekend. Vermont commissioner of Tourism and Marketing Wendy Knight says her inspiration for the promotional campaign happened when: “I got to thinking; visitors are an ideal captive audience,”
Sure sounds like timeshare pitch, only (befitting the Vermont brand) a bit more refined — sweetened with real maple syrup: [Stay to Stay] gives tourists the opportunity to relax and also to network with business leaders and tour Vermont communities with real-estate experts to learn more about relocating to Vermont.
It is all part of Governor Scott’s unproven million-dollar effort to boost Vermont’s population and address the state’s worker shortage. But attendance at the Department of Tourism’s weekend premier in Brattleboro, Bennington, and Rutland is expected to be less than even the modest numbers hoped for. Half of the dozen potential visitors signed up for the Rutland and Brattleboro areas cancelled and no one who signed up will be visiting Bennington.
Undaunted by the dismal turnout Knight noted one positive — the free media she had gotten nationally for the first event. Bloomberg.com does indeed have nice blurby press release style bit about “Stay to Stay” headlined:This Weekend, Aging Vermont Will Try to Make Tourists Into Residents.
But the thing about free media is you give up a certain amount of control of the whole message.
The U S News piece about Stay to Stay starts with what I hope is unintentionally a funny headline: Vermont Taps Tourists to Bolster Workforce. That headline sounds to me as if Governor Scott, desperate to boost our workforce, intends to force visitors to pick apples, milk cows, turn cheese curds, or tend sugar houses.
But the “great” thing about the US News bit is the targeted sidebars, as you can see from the two screen shots, which all tout other states — Massachusetts best for women and children, Connecticut high school record graduation rate, and a list of the U S News top five states not including Vermont.
Maybe it was just the weather that ruined this Stay to Stay, so spin it however you want. But you can’t spin away from the out-of-proportion amount of taxpayer-funded effort it took to get a half dozen out-of state “captive” visitors to sit still for a Think!Vermont sales pitch in April.
Maybe some nice sticky sugar-on-snow painted on the seats would help.
Here’s a thought. If we want to encourage more people to move to Vermont, let’s do something meaningful that will really get their attention.
It’s not surprising that we talk a lot about how to fund education. It’s a big deal. But what about the other half of the issue? We know what matters to families and employers. If we made a 20-year commitment to make our public schools the very best in the country (and not by a little, but by a lot), the word would get out and generate a lot of interest.
It would be a lot harder than a lousy PR campaign, but what the heck are we doing here if not leaving the place better than when we found it?