Boston aiming $2M advertising campaign at bringing tourists back after coronavirus

Please come to Boston for the springtime — or whenever coronavirus recedes, the city plans to say as it readies a $2 million PR campaign aimed at promoting post-pandemic tourism.

“What we did was we announced a team that’s going to lead a marketing campaign to help showcase Boston as a safe destination for global travel,” Mayor Martin Walsh told reporters Thursday afternoon.

“It’s not going to have an immediate impact,” he added, “but it’s building up as we think about the holidays and headed to early next year — how do we make sure that Boston, as long as we’re safe, can be highlighted as a safe city to bring back the tourism industry.”

The city will spend $2 million of the CARES Act coronavirus relief money it’s receiving to work with Colette Phillips Communications, the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Proverb to figure out how to draw people back once the virus abates. The mayor’s office touted the fact that Colette Phillips is the city’s oldest minority-owned communications firm.

“The goal of the campaign is to increase awareness and active promotion, and drive trips to Boston from diverse local and regional visitors, while supporting the public health guidance that’s in place,” the city said in a press release. “The team has been charged with highlighting attractions and events that speak to the experiences of people of color in Boston, and the campaign will highlight local minority-owned and run businesses and organizations.”

Walsh said the campaign will also market the city’s various neighborhoods, pointing people to places that aren’t just downtown.

The tourism business has been pummeled by the coronavirus pandemic everywhere, and Boston’s hotels and restaurants have seen as big of a drop as any. Walsh’s office said nearly 5% of the city’s economic product comes from arts, tourism and culture — fields that also provide an outsized number of the Hub’s jobs. Boston had been seeing more than 19.9 million domestic and 2.9 million international visitors per year, the city says.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/38fgiQl