One point about Second Saturday is that the art destinations have doubled (and are still growing), but the number of visitors has not. The next big need is to have more marketing/promotion for ALL of those art locations.
I give the Tourist /Convention Bureaus
mostly high marks, but now they need to start concentrating on
promoting specific areas,such as the thirty-plus blocks of Central Ave.
that have all of these art spots and a dedicated trolley system to move
people from one area to another. Since the Bureaus are spending bed tax
money, they usually produce diffused, generic advertising rather than
pinpointing specific areas that can even benefit business's that are out
of the immediate advertising area. Why can't tourist ads be put in
'Art News', 'American Artist', etc. This is directly reaching out to an
art audience that would love to come to St. Petersburg, once they knew
how much is here (most cities would kill to have an Arts District that
is 30-plus blocks long.
Another idea is to use off-season
condo rentals (approximately May through September to attract art fans
who would want to actually live in St. Petersburg for several months to
see art places, or to even have months long arts classes designed for
them. Marketing/Promotion is now becoming the name of the game.
--- Malcom Johnson
(A special note of thanks to Malcom --- Luis)
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