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Marketing downtown Macon
Study finds more could be done to attract tourist dollars to city's festivals, Centreplex
By Anna Clark and Stacy Lam
The Macon Telegraph
The Cherry Blossom Festival, Macon's signature event, needs professional management and an "objective review" of its funding and budget, a report released last week recommends.
The report, which criticizes public and private efforts to develop the city's tourism potential, suggests making the festival board more representative of the demographics of the Macon community.
 Newspaper survey reveals opinions on downtown | |
Changes are needed in the festival to dispel perceptions of "elitism" and foster greater diversity, business involvement and financial accountability, the report by Randall Travel Marketing of Charlotte, N.C., said.
"Based on the RTM review, it is apparent the organization and festival would benefit from an objective review and a revised, tightly focused management direction that could provide even greater benefit to the community, within the same budget," the report states.
Festival officials met Friday for a first look at the report. Officials said the report's call for an objective review was unclear and denied any elitism is associated with the festival.
"We feel we just don't have enough information to know which directions to go in or changes to make," said John O'Shaughnessey, chairman of the festival board.
Festival Executive Director Carolyn Crayton said the festival board cannot take action until it has more information from Randall Travel Marketing about the recommendations and how they were developed.
The consultants found it difficult to develop information about the Cherry Blossom budget. During the course of the six-month study, the consultant said festival officials did not comply with requests for a complete copy of the festival budget.
"They were very kind and very gracious, but we didn't get the information," said Judy Randall, one of the authors of the study.
Crayton said the consultant was sent a budget summary.
"We thought we'd sent her what she wanted," Crayton said.
The consultant said figures supplied by the festival did not match city budget figures for the event.
"I'm not aware of any difference," Crayton said. "There's only one budget."
Macon Mayor Jim Marshall said the city's Finance Department staff will review any discrepancies. He said he does not believe there is anything inappropriate about festival finances.
"I'll assume the difference is something completely explainable," Marshall said.
The Downtown Council, Macon Cherry Blossom Festival, Macon-Bibb County Convention and Visitors Bureau and NewTown Macon - all groups involved in promoting Macon's downtown - paid for the $55,000 study.
Randall Travel Marketing Inc. spent six months surveying and interviewing tourists, residents and business owners before drawing its conclusions.
TURF PROBLEMS HURT
The report concludes that downtown development is held back by duplicate efforts and turf-defending among groups.
For Macon to revive its downtown and be a tourist destination, not just a stop on the way to somewhere else, it will have to address these problems, the downtown and tourism marketing study urges.
The report is critical of operations at the city's $40 million Coliseum and Wilson Convention Center, saying customers were dissatisfied with service there.
The report spoke well of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, concluding the CVB should be the lead organization heading up tourism efforts. The consultants said the CVB is underfunded, receiving 63 percent of the hotel/motel tax distributed by the city and county, while the national average for such agencies is 75 percent.
The Cherry Blossom Festival and the Centreplex, which includes the facilities on Coliseum Drive and the City Auditorium, also receive portions, which the study recommends giving back to the CVB to administer and monitor.
The recommendation that the CVB award hotel-motel tax funds through an annual matching grant process, instead of the direct allocation the Cherry Blossom Festival now gets from the city and county, could lead to a "divisive situation," the CBF's O'Shaughnessey said.
"It needs to be proven it's a better way by the experience of others," he said. "If it looks like a good idea for all parties concerned, I would be for it."
Janice Marshall, executive director of the CVB, said the festival puts together good marketing materials. But the festival's marketing is not necessarily geared to bringing overnight visitors, which is what the money should be used for exclusively.
"We have fought to protect the bed tax no matter who had it because those taxes were collected from the hoteliers for marketing to increase overnight stays," Janice Marshall said. "We're practiced at knowing what activities generate bed taxes. If we're in a position to grant the money, then we can keep better tabs. We're the overseer of these dollars, and sometimes it's very difficult if the government agencies are doing the distribution."
Also in the partial CBF budget information provided, the consultant noted $27,287 in expenses for travel, meetings and dues, and $20,226 for miscellaneous expenses, but no line item for advertising and promotion.
The festival organization doesn't have a large budget specifically for marketing. And it doesn't do any paid advertising.
The backbone of the festival organization's marketing efforts is free exposure via newspapers, magazines, radio and television, generated through about 400 media kits distributed around the world. The festival also spends $16,000 to $18,000 each year on a schedule of events and pays to have its brochures placed in state welcome centers and in Atlanta hotels and other businesses.
"I did notice in parts of the budget we were given that spending on direct marketing outreach was either very low or wasn't significant," Randall said. "There needs to be a committed budget for solid outreach."
COLISEUM, CONVENTION CENTER
The study revealed that many of the people who held events in 1997 were not satisfied customers and only planned their events there because they had no other options."
Besides problems with staff, the research revealed that the convention center will always have trouble luring statewide conventions with many out-of-town visitors because it doesn't offer a resort atmosphere or a hotel connected to it or easy access to downtown's attractions.
Until the facilities have an adjacent, full-service hotel, the center and the CVB need to solicit aggressively the budget-conscious groups that are already using the facility for conventions and meetings.
Other recommendations include establishing "core hiring standards" for adequately trained management and personnel and a customer service training program.
"It became apparent that there is at least a perception that Centreplex staff is not adequately trained, and in some cases unqualified for the positions held," the study reported. In another chapter the study continued, "There were concerns that the facility is understaffed and employees need improved leadership."
The Macon mayor said he heard "loud and clear what (the study) is saying." "I have wanted to bring in a professional management consultant for quite some time to look at Centreplex operations," Jim Marshall said.
Marshall said he was surprised by the study's findings, especially because the Coliseum and convention center are almost on target to break even this year. The city is still paying off bonds for expansions this decade that totaled $20 million.
But he said he was especially frustrated that his request to the City Council in September to release $30,000 in the Centreplex's budget for a consulting group to study the facility was rejected. The Appropriations Committee rejected the allocation 3 to 2, with many members saying the consultant was part of the mayor's plan to privatize the Coliseum and convention center.
"I don't care if the results are that we ought to bring in Attila the Hun Inc.," Mayor Marshall said. "We've got too much money invested to be less than first-rate."
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