Tourism Advertising by New Mexico “On a Shoestring Budget”

At least when compared to our competitors: 

Colorado   $15 Million

Arizona      $6 Million

Texas         $24 Million

Utah            $7 Million

New Mexico   $2.6 Million 

And that $2.6 million is to be cut in the just approved budget (March, 2010) by $700,000 for fiscal 2011.  

A number of old sayings apply here:  You don’t ask.  You don’t get.   *  Squeaking wheel gets the grease.   *   Don’t ask.  Don’t tell.   Well, maybe that last one doesn’t quite apply but you get the drift.    When money is spent on tourism advertising, there is a return on that investment.  Every study on tourism advertising spending shows the same thing.  When you spend $1.00, you are gonna get about $40.00 in economic activity and about $3.00 back into the state’s treasury. 

Now, we go the Santa Fe every year and say to the Legislators, if you spend $1.00 in tax money, you will get $3.00 back into the Treasury plus it puts people to work in tourism related jobs – either new jobs or more hours of work for existing jobs. 

I’m not a math wizard but, if I had a dollar and handed it to you and you give me $3.00 back, I’d say that’s a good thing.   You’d be my new best friend. We’d be BFFs  (Best Friends Forever)   But, to the New Mexico Legislature, you’d think we were speaking in tongues.  They just look at you like they’d look at an elderly aunt who just keeps telling the same stories over and over.  “Oh, you dear sweet heart, just sit quietly out of the way.  We’ve got some legislatin’ to do, hon.” 

When you use logic to prove the irrefutable point, we get that look:  you poor soul, you are so cute.  Trying to think and everything!    We get the verbal ‘pat on the head’. 

Now, the state will authorize millions in tax refunds and even direct investments to bring film production to New Mexico. And, that’s wonderful.  A good concept.  Brings a lot of money to the state.  Good, high paying jobs on the film crew.  

But, ask for millions for tourism adverting?  “That just promotes burger flipping jobs.”  It seems that every Legislator graduated from high school and went directly to a CEO position.  None had to work their way through college.  None had to be hired in some small business as a counter clerk or an office runner or a receptionist.  According to the National Restaurant Association 7 of 10 working Americans have worked in a restaurant….you know, flippin burgers or waiting tables or dishwashing or cashiering or cooking on the line.   

Those burger flippin jobs, according to the US Travel Association in 2007, brought $5.7 billion to the state and $700 million in taxes.  That makes tourism New Mexico’s second largest private industry and the largest private sector employer.  But, we don’t get any respect. 

Santa Fe is at a pretty high altitude.  Air is thinner up there.  I think it’s the last of oxygen.  Legislators from the plains and valleys go up there and it just affects them.  2 + 2 no longer equals 4.  

More money for tourism advertising will generate more tourism.  More tourists spending money means more in taxes for the state, more jobs for more people.  It seems simple enough, doesn’t it?