Images from the Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau’s “Find Your Way Here” marketing campaign, which was launched earlier this month without the involvement of city officials.
Mayor Eric Papenfuse and the county tourism bureau today announced a four-year, $620,000 agreement to fund city marketing efforts, marking the first long-term compromise in nearly two years of an often bitter dispute over tourism dollars.
The agreement will provide the city $95,000 in sponsorships each year to promote four main Harrisburg events: the 4th of July festivities, the Kipona festival in September, the November holiday parade and the New Year’s Eve celebrations. The bureau will also spend $60,000 on direct marketing of these events each year.
Mary Smith, the bureau’s director, described the four events as the city’s “large, annual, signature events” and said that marketing them formed a key part of Harrisburg’s tourism strategy.
The agreement modifies an earlier request by Papenfuse for the bureau to fund two city hires, a marketing director and a web content manager, which he had said would build necessary capacity at city hall. Papenfuse said these hires would still form a part of his 2016 budget, which he is set to present to City Council Tuesday.
Officially, the bureau’s $95,000 annual commitment will be characterized as a sponsorship, though Papenfuse said the city is treating it as money that will fund the hires. The sponsorship characterization, he said, will address the bureau’s concern that its tourism dollars not be used for purposes other than traditional marketing.
The bureau had concerns about agreements that “set us up for any one of our partners to say, ‘Hey, we need a person,’” Smith said. “That’s where approaching it as a sponsorship really does make sense.”
The $95,000 in sponsorships will be funded as direct grants from the bureau’s budget, while the $60,000 in ads will come out of hotel tax money earmarked for spending on the city.
The agreement marks a compromise on a proposal Papenfuse put forward earlier this month during revived negotiations with the bureau, after the bureau launched its own marketing campaign created without the input or approval of city officials.
Addressing the mayor’s demand for city involvement, the bureau and Papenfuse also announced Monday that they have agreed to reconstitute a city marketing committee, which will include two city representatives.
The bureau, whose full name is the Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau, is the agency designated by the county to promote area tourism. It crafted its campaign over a six-month period, with input from downtown and Midtown businesses.
The campaign, under the slogan “Find Your Way Here,” broadcast an image of Harrisburg as a hip, off-the-beaten-path destination for millennials on a website and in a series of billboard and radio ads.
Papenfuse sharply critiqued the campaign, saying it was out of touch and insulting to demographic groups other than millennials. He also accused the bureau of having developed the campaign in secret, betraying what he said was an agreement to freeze city marketing dollars until a spending plan could be negotiated.
Monday’s compromise will leave the “Find Your Way Here” campaign intact, though it will be guided in future months by the newly constituted committee. Papenfuse expressed a hope that the city’s involvement would improve the campaign.
The mayor and the bureau have been battling over tourism spending since late 2013, when the newly elected Papenfuse learned about a 15-year commitment to use marketing dollars to subsidize the National Civil War Museum in Reservoir Park.
The commitment, inked under former Mayor Stephen Reed, locked the city into a long-term subsidy of the museum out of a portion of a tax on visitors to area hotels.
Papenfuse wanted the bureau to cut off the subsidy, saying it was draining resources meant to be spent on marketing the city as a whole. The bureau declined, saying it was legally obligated to pass the money to the museum.
The ensuing stalemate appears to have reached an end with Monday’s announcement, with both the mayor and the bureau describing it as a win for both parties. “We really do feel this is a great deal,” Smith said.
