HILTON HEAD ISLAND--The organization commissioned to help the state develop an economic development blueprint told tourism leaders Wednesday they weren't collaborating enough or working hard enough to distinguish the Palmetto State from competing tourist destinations.
A "competitiveness" report prepared by Boston-based Monitor Group in early December found that tourism spending in South Carolina is far below national averages. Kurt Dassel, a member of the Monitor Group, told about 100 hospitality leaders attending the last day of the governor's three-day tourism conference that they needed to present a united front to draw higher-spending visitors.
"To pursue a coherent strategy, you have to collaborate," Dassel said. "BMW can do it alone ... but you just can't in tourism."
The Monitor Group briefing echoed points relayed by Gov. Mark Sanford and others throughout the conference.
Dassel said his team has encountered some "disconnected" business goals in the state's tourism industry, but he noted there is "a great eagerness to do something different."
Some of the numbers included in the Monitor report underscore weaknesses in the state's No. 1 industry. For example, tourism capital investment per visitor in South Carolina is one-quarter of the national average, according to the Monitor Group. Gross tourism spending per visitor in South Carolina is two-thirds of the national average. And almost 28 percent of the state's visitors are just passing through on their way to Florida.
The report also found that most international visitors -- who account for 2.6 percent of all tourists -- are Canadians who stay for one night on their way south.
Dassel urged conference attendees Wednesday to do more to draw more far-flung travelers, visitors who spend about four times the amount that domestic tourists do. Dassel suggested state promoters should shift their marketing focus from countries with big numbers of overseas travelers -- like the United Kingdom and Germany -- to countries that top the charts in per-traveler spending, such as the United Arabrates, Saudi Arabia, Greece and Norway.
Dassel also said the state should do more to draw tourists focused on historical sites, rather than those out for relaxation or golf. "Historic" travelers spend about a third more than the average tourist, according to the Monitor Group.
There was grumbling about some of Dassel's points.
Some of the Charleston contingent at the conference noted that they traditionally push historic sites. And Ed Riggs, director of sales at the Charleston Area Convention Center, said much of the Monitor study was invalid because it was based on pre-9/11 statistics.
In any case, Dassel urged attendees to bolster the state's tourism "cluster" by forming statewide institutions in the interest of drafting a more focused marketing plan. Dassel cited California's wine industry as a paragon of a strong cluster.
Steve Morse, a University of South Carolina economist, agreed that the state's tourism factions are too fragmented.
"We've got great people that market South Carolina destination by destination, but as far as the whole, we don't look at South Carolina as a destination," Morse said. "Get people to South Carolina and then let each destination fight over them after that."
Chad Prosser, the director of the state's Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department, said his agency will roll out an industry-only Web site in coming weeks to encourage dialogue and collaboration among the various hospitality interests in the state.
The Monitor Group is in the process of picking 40 state business leaders from a variety of industries to establish a council to implement its suggestions over the next 10 to 20 years. The council will be privately funded and chaired by Sanford and Ed Sellers, chief executive officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina.
