‘Pure Michigan’ & Tourism Business

The state’s ‘Pure Michigan’ tourism ads have returned to the cable TV airwaves across the country.

Travel Michigan dropped $30 million on them last year, $14.9 million this year.

So, with the ads on again and prime tourism season coming up, what kind of year will it be for local tourism?

ABC 10 News Now senior reporter Mike Hoey has that story.

The ‘Pure Michigan’ ads won’t run on TV this year for as long as they used to.

Still, local hotel owners are glad to have them back at all.

Christine Pesola of the Landmark Inn in Marquette says the funding level wasn’t what she’d hoped for.

But the ads that will still run will drive people to the state, and to the U.P., who otherwise wouldn’t come here.

And those visitors have been comin in greater numbers this year in the late winter and early spring — a good sign for the warmer weather ahead.

Pesola and Lyn Durant of Marquette Township’s Cedar Motor Inn both say they had a surprisingly strong month of April — much better than 2009.

The Marquette Country Convention & Visitors Bureau says it’s especially interesting that April would be a strong month.

Pat Black of the Bureau says April is usually one of the Marquette area’s two slowest months of the year for tourism along with November.

She’s not sure where the April tourists came from, but she’s glad they came.

However, how they came to the area is changing.

Lyn Durant says long-term reservations have gone down in the last few years.

But she says walk-in business is up over what it was 5 years ago, to the point where overall business hasn’t dropped.

Pat Black says a recent vacation she took hammered home to her what Michigan should do.

When she went to the Gulf Coast of Alabama, she saw a Utah tourism ad just about every time she turned on a television.

Black hopes ‘Pure Michigan’ stays aggressive to keep bringing national tourism dollars into the U.P.