Dec 09
18
Pure Michigan
The Michigan house of representatives voted on Thursday December 17th to give the “Pure Michigan” ad campaign 40 million dollars to continue the campaign. They plan on funding this through collection from car rentals, and other tourism related businesses.
Anyone who has watched television, listened to the radio, or drove anywhere in the mid-west, has seen these cleaver ads, touting the beauty of Michigan. I could do without the voice overs from Tim Allen. The Michigan tourism is an $18.1 billion-a-year industry, employing 192,000 people which generates $874 million annually in state tax revenues. According to Steve Yencich, president and CEO of the Michigan Lodging & Tourism Association, every $1 that Michigan spends on tourism promotion, generates $2.87 in tax revenue. This means that the 10 million dollar increase in the Pure Michigan campaign should add an additional 28.7 million dollars in tax revenue.
Pure Michigan is a great campaign, and I hope that this bill does get through the senate, and it continues. It has won awards and has shown to increase tourism in Michigan even over the past year, we have seen an increase in tourism. I sometimes wonder how much of that increase is from Michigan residents, but either way it has succeeded in what it set out to do. One issue I do have is, with the increase in tax income for the state, what is it going to go towards. Pure Michigan has been very successful, I would like to see the extra tax income from tourism to be used for education and to increase Michigan’s viability to bring in companies to Michigan. Michigan has been very successful with their movie tax credits, why not take some of the money and fund a tax credit for companies that are growing in Michigan, or starting offices in Michigan. As these companies increase jobs in the state, they would bring in more taxes from the newly employed, along with making Michigan a more friendly business state. Another place that some of the increase in tax dollars needs to go is in to education. For Michigan to have a strong future, we need in invest in our students. Michigan needs to look at the Pure Michigan campaign as a spring board to bring Michigan back to the leader that it should be.
