City hopes new video’s national exposure will boost tourist numbers

Lights, Cameras, Nashville
Nashville Journal

A music video promoting Nashville is getting airtime on Great American Country in front of the cable station’s 55 million viewers.
The Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau produced the $100,000 music video to pump up its marketing of Music City. The video starts airing in GAC’s regular line-up this week — effectively giving the city a free pass to entice visitors here.
While other cities are cutting back marketing, Nashville isn’t letting up even though the visitors bureau’s $12 million budget is down about 6 percent because of drops in hotel occupancy. The bureau increased its sales staff in the spring and has brought in more convention clients this fall.
“The normal response, and maybe the more sane response, is dramatic cutbacks” in marketing during tough economic times, says Butch Spyridon, president of the visitors bureau. “We view it as a time to be even more aggressive.”
It’s been eight years since the bureau has produced a promotional video. Local songwriters Gabe Dixon and Jeremy Lister wrote and performed the song for the video, “Music Calls Us Home.” It was taped with places and images of Nashville as the backdrop.
Visitor bureaus in other cities have seen cutbacks. Milwaukee had county funding cuts, and Reno had layoffs. Spyridon says his counterparts in Atlanta had to take six days off unpaid.
GAC president Ed Hardy says the network chose the Nashville video for its production quality and music, just like any other video.
“It was well produced. It has great scenery of the city. It’s a well-done video,” Hardy says.
Spyridon says a commercial on GAC probably would have cost the bureau thousands of dollars, but it’s hard to place a value on the free video airplay.
The video will have several incarnations — depending on the venue. The bureau plans to shorten the five-minute video to run as a 30-second commercial in cities within 200 miles of Nashville, hoping to attract visitors within driving distance. Spyridon says he isn’t sure which markets the commercial will run, so he doesn’t know how much they’ll spend yet.
The first commercial will run during the Music City Bowl on ESPN for free with the city’s sponsorship. They haven’t had a new commercial for this spot in six years. The video will also be used to pitch Nashville to convention organizers, hoping to boost interest in the not-yet-built convention center.
With 40,000 people working in the tourism industry in Nashville, Spyridon said getting people to Music City is vital.
“We have to spin straw into gold,” he says.
Walt Baker, CEO of the Greater Nashville Hotel and Lodging Center, says the visitors bureau is doing the right thing by turning up the heat on marketing while others are dialing down.
“Smart marketers utilize this time to get in front of customers, whether they’re buying right now or they are going to be buying 12 months from now,” Baker says. “Just because we’re in a recession doesn’t mean people aren’t making decisions.”
Hoteliers are moving into 2009 with fairly low expectations, Baker says.
Average daily rates were $100.87 in the 28 days that ended Nov. 8, compared to $99.13 during the same period last year, according to Smith Travel Research. But hotel occupancy fell to 61.1 percent, down from 71.6 percent last year.
Revenue per available room, a key tourism industry measure, also dropped to $61.63, down from $70.94.
Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC is forecasing a substantial reducation in hotel sales nationally. It predicts revenue per available room will drop 5.8 percent in 2009, compared to a 0.8 percent drop in 2008. This would represent the first consecutive two-year decrease since 2001 and 2002.