The Sikeston and Miner Convention and Visitors Bureau has completed their fiscal year for 2003 and what a year it was.
When calculating all the advertising we did this year, we were very pleased. The budget for the CVB is less than $100,000 and the magazines we advertised in were the September issue of The Group Traveler, six issues of the Bus Tours Magazine, six months of the Midwest Traveler, four months of the Home and Away, six months of Southern Traveler, the 2003 Missouri Vacation Planner, three issues of Missouri Life, the 2002 Holiday insert, the 2003 Spring insert, the Sikeston Chamber of Commerce Images, the Winter 2002 and Spring 2003 issues of the Show Me-Missouri , March-September of Midwest Livings Best Vacations, the Antique and Collectibles tabloid and one full year of Missouri Meeting and Events Magazine. And we need to mention all the local programs we advertise in for the rodeo, soccer and tennis tournaments, etc.
We also attended Group Leaders of America shows at Quad Cities, Little Rock, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and St. Louis, and two shows for Meeting Planners, the Missouri Meetings 2003 Expo in St. Louis and the Affordable Meetings Mid-America held in Chicago.
We managed to do all that advertising for a little over $43,000. But you have to consider with all the advertising comes tons of inquiries, which means lot of mailings. As a matter of fact, we mailed out a total of 3,636 visitor guides and various requested pieces of information to people from all over the U.S. These packets were prepared by a staff of fantastic volunteers who dedicate their time to aid in the advertising of our cities.
The Missouri Division of Tourism Marketing programs has been a great financial aid to our efforts in marketing. Without their help we would not be able to reach the clients that we now do.
We have been informed than in 2005 the cooperative funding budget may be a little tighter, so we have plans to hold a "Spotlight on Tourism" dinner for our legislators in November to inform them of how important tourism is to our cities. Director of Tourism John Robinson has plans to attend and will be the guest speaker. This event will be similar to the "Savor the Southeast" festival we held in August for group leaders. That event was so successful, small towns and communities around the state are picking up on the idea and are planning to do the same.