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11/05/2004: "Detroit Tourism 101"

In the flurry of election related issues earlier this week, I somehow missed this little gem about a tourism campaign to push Detroit to those in the metro Detroit area.

This has to be a very expensive joke.

While a lot of those outside the city yet in the metro area would likely be hard pressed to give a date of their last excursion into Detroit, is the "Tourism Economic Development Council" (I can't be the only one who thinks that name is missing an "and" or just very poorly worded) really that sheltered that they think a few tv and radio spots will suddenly prompt someone in Farmington Hills (or any other town in the area) to say "Ahh hah! Lets go to Detroit! I had no idea there was a big park in the river! An art museum?! I never knew!"?

I'm willing to bet that the majority of those who avoid Detroit yet live in the metro area know what is here. There are endless media mentions (both local and national) of Belle Isle, various restaurants around the city, festivals, sporting events, museums, shops, Wayne State University, and dozens of other projects and spots.

The issue is not that these people have managed to miss mentions of what is in Detroit, they simply don't care. They see the crap that His Royal Highness Kwame pulls, they see the often pushed crime statistics, and the treatment of abandoned buildings that many in the suburbs remember visiting as a child.

Until deeper changes are made and a mayor actually does something instead of spending his term trying to look cool and get a few more women for him to have a fun time with, no amount of advertising will prompt those in the metro Detroit area to venture into Detroit.