Tourism reinstates ad grant program

It appears that the outcries of some Webster Parish non-profit organizations who have benefited from Webster Parish tourism advertising grants in the past, have not fallen on deaf ears.

The Webster Parish Convention and Visitors Commission has voted to reinstate its advertising grant program after pulling it in-house two months ago.

The vote to reintroduce the advertising grants comes roughly two months after the commission made the decision to convert to in-house advertising in an effort to manage where advertising dollars were spent. 

Despite the commission’s December decision to pull all advertising in house, not all grant applicants approved of the decision, voicing there concerns several times to the board.

“At that time, we thought it was a good idea, but after looking at the complexity and the amount of manpower and the amount of diversity in the different events that we are trying to promote, we realize that this board made a mistake,” Easley said.

Prior to bringing ad grants in house, approved advertising grant dollars were disbursed directly to applicants, which allowed the recipient to make decisions on where the funds were spent.

At that time, tourism guidelines required that recipients spend all advertising funds outside of Webster Parish in an attempt to draw visitors to the parish.

“When we are building events it is important to have local buy-ins,” Minden Chamber President Mike Moore said during the discussion. “I think it is important to advertise locally. We have to build a brand for local events locally.”

For this reason, the commission decided Monday to allow grant applicants to dole out advertising grant funds to local media sources inside of Webster Parish as long as the media entity extends beyond parish lines.

Other changes regarding ad grants include allowable expenses, which addresses various printing costs from brochures to postcards.

Although advertising funds are capped at $3,500 per event request, the number of overnight visitors it brings into local lodging entities will no longer determine the approval of the grant. Instead, the anticipated number of visitors the event generates will determine awards.

However, each funding request must include a detailed budget outlining the plans for promotional/advertising.

“There is nothing wrong with making a mistake, because if you are not doing something you are not going to make a mistake,” Easley said.  “We made a mistake collectively as a board and we are here today to fix it. We are taking this tourism board much more actively and trying to hear what everybody wants and trying to bring that to them, keeping in mind what we are trying to do.”

During the morning session, tourism also amended its 2010 budget in order to add a $75,000 line item for potential advertising needs.

“If we are going to go back to our advertising grants, we want to make sure enough money is there,” Commissioner Patony Morrow said, who also chaired the grant committee during recent discussions.

“We want Webster Parish tourism to grow.”

Closing discussions centered around preliminary talks regarding the commission providing a line item in its budget for “core” tourism events in the parish, such as the Scottish Tartan Festival, Cultural Crossroads, Dorcheat Museum, Springhill Lumberjack Festival and the Springhill Rodeo.

Although the commission is still working out details, if approved, according to a grant summary handout, each of these events would be removed from the grant application process in regard to competing with other local events for major grant funding.

During a second amendment to the budget, the commission voted to add a line item in the amount of $15,000 for the Springhill Rodeo Association.

A last-minute addition to the agenda by way of majority vote resulted in the addition of another line item in the amount of $3,500 for advertising  for the Springhill Arts Festival hosted by Cultural Crossroads.

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