Couldn’t those $$ be spent here?
In response to Monday’s front-page article regarding Salisbury’s new marketing campaign, I was both amused and disappointed to read that in order to attract local tourism (and presumably to boost local profits that are then reinvested in the community), the tourism board was sending $40,000 in marketing money to a firm in Arkansas.
What? Seriously?
Upon reading the proposal to the Tourism Development Authority, surely the committee would have noted the irony of spending $40,000 in another state to encourage others to spend money here. Not that $40,000 is too much to spend (having a marketing background, I know $40,000 is both reasonable and warranted for a full campaign), but couldn’t they have found a local marketing firm or even a regional marketing firm? At the very least, a firm in Charlotte or Winston-Salem?
It blows my mind that nowhere in the approval process of spending $40,000 does it appear that anyone noticed how ridiculous it is to send all that money over state lines for a service widely available locally … in order to encourage people to shop locally and boost the number of people coming here to spend money. It’s like the city spending money online at Barnes and Noble to buy books on how to support independent bookstores and then asking the Literary Bookpost to thank them.
Kudos to having the worthwhile goal and vision of marketing Salisbury in a multifaceted campaign; shame on you for not having the vision to see the irony in spending the money elsewhere instead of doing what you are asking others to do ó support local business.
ó Capri Brixey
Salisbury