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Tourism is a recognized component of economic development, and an effective tourism program brings visitors to a city, attracts business and fosters civic pride. With those facts in mind, the Sherman City Council recently approved an expenditure of $50,000 by the Chamber of Commerce Tourism Division to contract for a branding study for the City of Sherman. Branding of a city is much more complex than simply coming up with a gimmick or slogan to describe that city’s character. It is a method of identifying the one tangible thing that visitors and citizens of that city can identify with, and it will help us develop an image that will become unique to Sherman. The branding study is made up mostly of market research, which is time consuming and costly but effective. The market research will help us answer the following questions: What are our attractions that would bring tourists to the area? What kind of people do we attract to our area as tourists? Why do they come here? How do the citizens of Sherman see themselves and the personality of the city?
The money that is funding the branding study comes from hotel / motel taxes, also known as hospitality tax. It is not paid for with property taxes or sales tax and does not come out of the general fund. Hotel / motel tax is allowed for and regulated by the state. The State of Texas recognizes that increasing tourism can enable cities to generate income, and this tax is designed to do that. The state only allows hotel / motel tax revenue to be spent in ways that will directly generate more hotel / motel tax, meaning that it must be spent on marketing for increased tourism. If the direct result of the effort is not getting more heads into beds, it is not a legal expenditure. It would be a violation of state law for us to spend the money on street repairs, library or park improvements or anything other than marketing for increasing tourism to our area. If we were found to have spent the money in any other way, the City of Sherman would have to repay the tax. The expenditure for a branding study is an appropriate and responsible use of hotel / motel tax dollars.
The Tourism Advisory Board wisely decided that we should not do market research on ourselves. The results would be skewed and therefore ineffective if the survey were conducted locally. The questions asked, the people surveyed, and the answers would all be influenced by our preconceived notion of ourselves. Hiring experts with a proven track record, who don’t have a preconceived notion of our area, and who don’t have a stake in the results made more sense to us.
The branding study is part of an organized plan to turn around our tourism program. Our past efforts have been uncoordinated and lacking in direction. By not tracking our visitors and inquiries, we have no knowledge of who our visitors are or why they come here. If we can’t identify those fundamental ingredients, we can’t know how to attract more visitors. We have not been able to tell if our past marketing efforts have been successful, making decisions about future efforts more difficult. Our hope is that the branding of Sherman will guide our future programs and make them more effective. The imaging will also be made available to all the organizations that offer attractions and plan events, therefore making their advertising efforts more effective. The repetitive use of the image will make Sherman more recognizable and attractive to visitors.
I have a perspective unique to the other members of the Sherman City Council. I served on the Sherman Chamber of Commerce Convention and Visitors Council for 2 ½ years as a representative of the Sherman Preservation League. As a volunteer with the Sherman Preservation League and other organizations, I have been directly involved in event planning. I have intimate knowledge of how difficult it is to publicize events effectively and how important it is to make wise decisions about advertising expenditures.
I left the Convention and Visitors Council after 2 ½ years in frustration. In spite of valiant efforts of many of those involved, I saw a lack of direction and an inability to make sound decisions about marketing the area or distribution of the hotel / motel tax funds. Funds went unspent because it was difficult to make decisions and gauge the effectiveness of past expenditures. At times, events that stood little chance of generating hotel / motel tax were funded. I noticed a tendency within the tourism program and within many of the local non-profit organizations to market our area to ourselves. As a City Council Member, I have taken an active interest in working with the Chamber of Commerce to turn around our tourism program and see that the money will be spent wisely. I now serve as the City Council representative to the Tourism Advisory Board. In that capacity I have taken a stand against the habits of the past, against funding events that last less than 2 days, and against funding events that fail to advertise outside our area. My goal is to see that the hotel / motel tax fund be spent appropriately and in a way that will help generate more income to the City of Sherman.
Effective marketing for tourism will benefit our community. Tourists stay in our hotels, eat in our restaurants, and shop in our stores. They help provide financial support to our attractions, such as the Red River Historical Museum, the C.S. Roberts House, and Frontier Village, which are run by non-profit agencies. They contribute to our economy by supporting our service oriented businesses and helping us generate more sales tax and hotel / motel tax dollars. An effective tourism program will help foster the development of more tourist attractions, businesses, and events. An increase in sales tax dollars can enable the City of Sherman to provide better services to its citizens without having to raise the property tax rates. It is my hope that an effective tourism program will help generate income for the City of Sherman and help us to provide those public services and improvements to our public facilities that we all want.
I hope you will visit the Sherman Tourism web site (www.shermantx.org) and fill out the survey for the branding study. The survey is being circulated locally as well as outside our area. In addition, I encourage you to ask your friends and relatives who live outside our region, but have visited Sherman, to also fill out the survey.