If you can afford the $30 bucks to pour into the gas tank, it’s definitely time to head north to celebrate the glory of the Michigan summer.
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown is a Michigan tourism junkie who’s been shooting the state’s magnificent Pure Michigan campaign directly into his veins…
“You’re driving to work in the morning while listening to the radio, or you’ve just plopped into your favorite chair to catch some TV at night, and, before you know it, you’ve been sucked into the Michigan trap,” Brown wrote this month. “It starts with the gentle tinkle of piano music, strings playing softly underneath. Then the voice starts, soothing and friendly, familiar too, but you can’t quite place it. By now, you don’t even have to listen to the words to know what the commercial is saying. Come to Michigan, it purrs. The music and voice alone have triggered the desired Pavlovian response. Your eyes roll back in your head, visions of blue lakes, sandy beaches and sunsets overtake your thoughts as the full orchestra joins in.”
Columns like that have rushed forth from the keyboards of travel writers across the land in the past couple years as Pure Michigan has captured the imaginations of the work-weary.
Funding for the Pure Michigan campaign is set to run out soon. A package of bills moving through the state House attempts to set a wise course of a more sustainable funding source, with a small portion of the sale tax collected by tourism businesses being directly reinvested in the state’s taxpayer-funded promotion campaigns.
Economic studies have shown that the state gets big returns in additional sales tax revenue for every dollar invested in tourism promotion.
So, if you head north, send a postcard to your legislator, urging a long-term, sustainable solution for funding the promotion of Michigan’s distinctive and competitive natural resources and tourism industry.
A couple images to get you in the mood. Click here for the latest Pure Michigan videos. And, finally, check out this monster brown trout caught this month on the Manistee River by Lance Weyeneth, a Gaylord-based real estate agent and angling consultant at Gates Au Sable Lodge in Grayling…
4 Comments
This should be a pay to play program. If golf is going to be featured, there should be a golf tax to pay for it. If Frankenmuth gets a commercial, there should be a Frankenmuth tax. Same thing for Grand Rapids, ski resorts, Port Huron to Mackinaw, etc.
By the way, the last time I was in Frankenmuth all I saw were Michigan license plates. Makes you wonder id Pure Michigan is purely for Michigan???
There is no doubt about the emotional strings that come attached to the Pure Michigan campaign. I have my out of state relatives from Illinois tell it to me all the time and they say it with feeling. But, sales tax revenues are meant to be shared with local governments so our communities that thrive on tourism are safe and can provide essential services. Important as the Pure Michigan campaign is, we ought not be siphoning off sales tax money to pay for it, until such time that the state lives up to its initial promise and fully funds revenue sharing.
If anyone is following public opinion from across these United States, you must realize the negative impression people have regarding anything related to Michigan. Detroits political scandals tied to crime in general, our record setting unemployment and the contempt for Detroit’s auto industry have made Detroit and by extention, Michigan, the nations favorite object of scorn.
There is only one voice heard nationally singing our praises and that is Tim Allens Pure Michigan ads. Spend what ever it takes to keep them going. It’s the best means we have to counter those who would take this state down.
I agree that Pure Michigan has to be pounded into the ears of Michigans neighboring states and its citizens.
The feeling of getting away to the relaxing, natural surroundings of Michigan in contrast to the state that did not diversify properly in time and keep it’s eyes open to the obvious dead end future.
Fortunately we still have much to offer in our natural resources. Let everyone know this.