Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2008

Myrtle where?

Name recognition depressingly low, survey says

Ever talk to a person outside the Carolinas who thought Myrtle Beach was in Florida? Or said, 'Myrtle where?'

Nearly 60 percent of potential travelers in a recent survey were only "slightly familiar" with Myrtle Beach or had never heard of it at all. And those are the folks who live in the states where Myrtle Beach is advertised the most as a vacation destination.

That's bad news for tourism promoters, who spend $2 million a year trying to get the word out about Myrtle Beach.

The beach's $5 billion tourism economy relies on vacationers coming and spending. But they can't visit Myrtle Beach if they don't know it exists.

"It's like being the beauty queen and not going to the prom," said Brad Dean, the chamber's president.

Feeling pressure to lure more visitors here, the chamber asked Equation Research to find out what potential tourists think.

More than half - 53 percent - of respondents living in the target market were "slightly familiar" with the Myrtle Beach area. About 6 percent had never even heard of it.

"They don't know you," said Equation Research's John Pelletier, who spent 25 years developing marketing strategies for hotels, airlines and destinations. "You are not getting out there in a meaningful, memorable way."

Awareness of Myrtle Beach is "embarrassingly low," Dean said. The chamber paid for the survey to help guide the latest advertising efforts.

"It's certainly an eye-opener," Dean said. "We are a well-kept secret."

The survey results are based on responses from 972 people living in six states that are considered the Grand Strand's target market: Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The survey was conducted Sept. 18-27 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus.

When it comes to vacation preferences, Myrtle Beach - which attracts 14 million visitors a year and has 90,000 lodging units - is ranked between the Outer Banks, N.C., and Hilton Head Island - two destinations that combined get about half as many visitors a year as Myrtle Beach. Orlando topped the list.

The Outer Banks gets about 5 million visitors a year. Even fewer, 2.5 million, visit Hilton Head Island.

The Outer Banks launched an awareness campaign in 2002 that resulted in more than 80 percent awareness in the region and more than 65 percent awareness nationally by 2004, said Carolyn McCormick, managing director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau. The bureau spends $2 million a year on media and production, she said, the same amount as the Myrtle Beach chamber.

People don't know Myrtle Beach, Dean says, because the destination doesn't have as much money to buy ads as its competitors. For three years, the Grand Strand has fallen behind destinations such as Virginia Beach, Va., and Gatlinburg, Tenn., in the region.

The awareness problems couldn't come at a worse time for the chamber. The organization is in the middle of a push to grow the number of visitors at a record pace to catch up with the booming growth in the number of lodging units.

The beach is built to hold about 20 million tourists a year - 6 million more than come here now. Even more lodging towers are in the works.

"Myrtle Beach will be unable to attract millions of new visitors when 60 percent of its target market is not familiar with it," Pelletier said.

On the other hand, for those who have heard of it, Myrtle Beach fared well as a destination - perceived by nearly half of respondents in the target market as a good value with excellent entertainment and fine dining.

The chamber already has a plan to spread the word. It will shift money that had gone after new markets back into the target market and seek the national spotlight through publicity partnerships.

And, thanks to private dollars and a state grant, there will be more ads about Myrtle Beach on television and the Internet. The chamber will spend more on TV and the Internet in 2007 than it has in the past five years combined, Dean said. "We are not dealing with a problem of image," he said. "Our problem is a lack of image."

Contact DAWN BRYANT at 626-0296 or dbryant@thesunnews.com.