State seeks marketing agency to work with Office of Tourism on promoting Maine
Courtesy / Maine Office of Tourism
Last summer's Maine Office of Tourism campaign touted the state as a safe place to visit. The Department of Community and Economic Development has issued an RFP for an agency to help with tourism promotion as the current contract comes to an end.
The state has issued a request for proposals from advertising and marketing agencies that will help expand and promote Maine as a tourist destination across the country and in Canada.
The RFP is for an existing contract that ends June 30, according to the Department of Economic and Community Development. The department is seeking proposals for promotional services to be administered by the Office of Tourism, a division of DECD, beginning July 1.
"This is a normal process mandated by legislative statute that takes place periodically depending on the contract," DECD said.
The budget for the marketing program is based on a percentage of lodging and restaurant taxable sales, and was $17 million in 2020, a DECD spokesperson told Mainebiz. Restaurants and lodging businesses generate approximately $2 billion in taxable sales annually, but the official didn't comment on how 2020's pandemic-affected numbers might influence the budget.
The contract would run through June 30, 2023, with two renewal periods ending June 30, 2026. It's now held by BVK, of Winsconsin, and is one of a variety of contracts the Office of Tourism has with marketing contractors.
The contracted agency would help develop and execute a statewide year-round tourism marketing program in key domestic and Canadian regions, and provides marketing services that include strategic planning, market analysis, market segmentation, positioning, branding, creative/production services, media services and web services, according to DECD.
Recent Office of Tourism marketing campaigns include the three-year "This is Me" campaign, targeting first-time visitors from both the mid-Atlantic states and "legacy" areas of Boston and New York, and last summer's $2 million promotion of Maine as a safe place to visit.
Overall, in 2019 tourists spent nearly $6.5 billion in Maine, the industry supported more than 116,000 jobs — about 17% of employment in the state, according to the tourism office's annual report. Travel contributed more than $2.8 billion in earnings to Maine households.
The numbers had been steadily increasing, with 37.4 million visitors in 2019, up 7% from the year before and a five-year plan that called for 42.3 million by 2023. Data on 2020 hasn't been released yet.
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