Chad Prosser, 35, former chairman of the Horry County Council, six months ago became director of the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism.

His first task upon his appointment by Gov. Mark Sanford: Cutting costs amid mounting state budget cuts and an economy in recession.

Prosser sat down with The State last week to discuss his agency and one of the state's most important economic engines: tourism.

QUESTION: One of the things Gov. Sanford promised was to "maximize investment in tourism." What have you been able to do toward fulfilling that promise?

ANSWER: As far as marketing, we have made some tremendous progress even in the face of the budgets cuts we have had.

Traditionally about 19 percent of our budget has been spent on marketing. My goal is to increase that to 25 percent. In the current fiscal year that began July 1, we've been able to do that.

Not only did we increase the percentage of our budget going to marketing, but we increased the absolute dollars going to marketing.

Our marketing budget is about $11.8 million this year, and that is up from just over $9.8 million last year.

The biggest piece of that is the percentage we devote to paid space media, things like newspapers and magazines. That has usually been about a third. We've increased that to 40 percent.

What we are putting into paid space media is just over $4.5 million this year, compared with $2.9 million last year. That $4.5 million is more than we have ever spent on paid space.

QUESTION: Can you predict what kind of impact the spending on advertising is going to have?

ANSWER: Our studies have shown that we get a return of about 23 to 1 on the dollars that we spend on advertising, and that has been fairly consistent.

From that standpoint, I think I can predict that there is going to be a good amount of impact. There are so many other macroeconomic forces that are in play that it is really hard to say exactly.

But I do think we are starting a recovery mode. I think, like everything else, it is not necessarily going to be a quick climb. But things are going to continue to move up. I think we are seeing that now in the numbers.

QUESTION: How is South Carolina's tourism industry doing?

ANSWER: I think the recession impacted us more than 9/11. We were really seeing weakness in the industry before 9/11. Of course that deepened it.

But if we compare ourselves with other states, we have done relatively well despite those negative factors.

The key is getting out there in the market and making sure we maintain and grow our market share. There is a lot of other competition out there, a lot more supply of everything from hotel rooms to tee times. There is a lot more competition from other states who are spending more money on tourism.

For us that is a key element: To make sure we remain competitive with other states.

QUESTION: How was the spring tourism season?

ANSWER: Spring was fairly good. I think the main factor impacting us in the spring was weather. It seemed to strategically rain every weekend, like clockwork.

It really impacted the department in terms of our park revenue. We derive most of our park revenue during that portion of spring going into summer. We definitely saw that as a factor.

QUESTION: Will summer be better?

ANSWER: Everywhere I have been, June has been up and not just a slight bit, but a good deal. That is really the first encouraging news of any strong return to a growth pattern.

I think the summer numbers, from what I have seen, will come out strong, and we are hoping the fall will do well.

We are doing a lot of things for the fall to make sure that happens, from some partnership marketing to a $750,000 campaign. .‘.‘.

I hate to even say the word "hurricane," (but) as long as the weather holds out, we will be in good shape for the fall.

QUESTION: Tourism is said to be the state's No. 1 employer, but a large number of the jobs are viewed as low-paying. How can tourism contribute to increasing the per capita wealth in South Carolina?

ANSWER: One way is in its relationship to other industries, because tourism is the critical link in recruiting new capital investment.

People explore S.C. first generally on a vacation and as a tourist. They see the quality of life here. Then they invest their dollars or bring their capital or move their business. All the things that are good for tourism are good for economic development of other industries in terms of quality of life, and that is something our agency is very focused on.

But the jobs that tourism provides, just the direct jobs, are higher-paying than I think many people realize. The numbers are skewed in many respects because of seasonality. People are only working in the industry at certain times of the year.

So for us, part of the challenge is building our shoulder seasons and extending the time that we have visitors here.

There are jobs that are provided by tourism assets -- middle-management and management jobs -- that are very good-paying jobs.

When you look at the service- and knowledge-based economy that we have now, there are less and less widget manufacturers. It may take more tourism to yield the same number of jobs that pay X amount, whatever you say is a good salary. To some degree the industry makes it up in volume. We're the largest industry, so we do provide a number of those jobs.

QUESTION: One of the things you did because of budget cuts was reorganize the department. What has the reorganization forced you to do, and what has it allowed you to do?

ANSWER: I think that's a good way to phrase the question. There are always opportunities and sort of a silver lining to the cloud as well.

What it has forced us to do is become a much leaner operation, which in many respects is a good thing. The agency was operating at a level that was really not sustainable for what our resources were.

We definitely had to rein things in. We reduced a certain number of people. We lost some people we had rather not lose. There were some good human resources that were lost, and that was the downside.

The upside is that morale has increased for those who are still here, because they understand the importance of their role. .‘.‘. We basically flattened the organization a good bit. I eliminated the four divisions and the four division directors. I eliminated one of my deputies who retired. I've taken my other deputy and made her the chief of staff.

In many respects that is good, it has kind of reconnected management and everyone else in the agency. We had managers managing managers managing managers, and that was not the best way to be organized.

I've tried to break down a lot of the organizational firewalls that were here.

QUESTION: There has been talk about moving the state film office from Commerce back to PRT?

ANSWER: The film office has been bounced around several times. I think regardless of where it resides, whether it is at Commerce or here, our role is to maximize the film industry's impact. Any films produced in South Carolina need to be incorporated in our marketing and public relations efforts.

For instance, with "The Patriot" (the 2000 Mel Gibson movie dealing with the American Revolution) we have done a continuing campaign with regard to those sites that has been very successful.

There was some thought that the state needed to aggressively pursue building movie studios and postproduction facilities. But that is a tough market whether I have it or (Commerce Department head) Bob Faith has it. Most of that is going offshore or going to Canada.

The film office did very well under PRT before, but we're not out there trying to acquire the film office.