It was made public today that members of the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners are considering the possibility of forcing a merger between the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (YACVB) and its counterpart in Ann Arbor. This, as I understand it from my sources, is something that the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (AAACVB) has been trying to see accomplished for over a decade, but it would seem that they may have finally gotten enough support at the County level to make it happen, and it has me wondering what the impact might be for Ypsilanti, which, in my opinion, has been doing an increasingly good job these past few years of promoting itself as a City with its own unique character, independent of Ann Arbor.
[The Ann Arbor News article can be found here.]
The idea behind this – the idea that we should brand ourselves consistently across the County as “the greater Ann Arbor region” – by the way, isn’t new. I can remember back, over a decade ago, when it was decided to replace our regional economic development group, the Washtenaw Development Council, with what we now call Ann Arbor SPARK. The brand that resonates with people outside the region, we were told, wasn’t Washtenaw County, but Ann Arbor, and, given that, we should let them take the lead. We’d all benefit, they said. And, it would seem, we bought into it, thinking that we’d have a better chance of attracting the interest of developers and the like. All we had to do was submit to the all-powerful Ann Arbor brand and become part of “the greater Ann Arbor region.” A dozen years or so into the experiment, I don’t know that we can call it a victory for Ypsilanti. While Ann Arbor continues to grow by leaps and bounds, all that we have, after a decade, is a new dollar store.
Along these same lines, we were told a few years ago that for the sake of efficiency, we should combine our Chambers of Commerce. We were assured at the time that the new entity would maintain a presence in downtown Ypsilanti, and they did… for a little while. Eventually, that office closed. Now, from what I hear, we have one Chamber employee, who can, “every once in a while,” be found at a desk inside SPARK East.
[note: According to Angela Barbash, the founder of Ypsilanti’s Reconsider, the Chamber presence in Ypsilanti is virtually nonexistent these days. “I haven’t seen a Chamber representative at SPARK East for at least nine months,” she told me today. “They don’t even make an appearance at the monthly ‘start your own business’ class that’s held there.” She went on to say, “I should also note that the Chamber was unresponsive to three outreach requests we made last fall when we were launching venture LOCAL. We were definitely disappointed.”]
So, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical when told that Ypsilanti will come away from a merger better than we went into it. Ceding our uniqueness, I think, to become just another part of “the greater Ann Arbor region,” would be a huge mistake.
With all of that said, however, I do acknowledge that those on the other side of the debate have legitimate points. Following, for instance, are the thoughts of former Ypsilanti City Planner Richard Murphy, who notes, for example, that being a part of the AAATA gives us much better bus service than we could ever accomplish on our own.
I hear your concern about diminishing one channel for community brand identity, though the other side of that is, at what point are things too fragmented and parochial to meet any need beyond “the right name” effectively? Certainly I think the YDDA serves its districts better now than when it was two DDAs failing to effectively work together; the Chamber merger similarly may give Ypsi businesses access to more resources within the larger organization, and more exposure through it. We’re better off as part of AAATA than if we tried to establish our own Ytransit agency.
I think there are cases where it’s important to have a separate organization or institution, and this may be one of them–where the existential purpose of the institution is to promote a specific community brand. However, that’s by no means always the case, and I wanted to provide examples where the *function* of an organization, and the *benefit* it provides to Ypsi may well be improved by aggregating upwards. That’s the question I’d like to see considered here, and in any case: what do we actually gain or lose, and can we talk about that thing, rather than talking about the name per se.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention at this point that my wife has, on occasion, been asked to do freelance design work for the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. (She recently helped them with their 2015 Best of Ypsilanti Guide, a little bit of which can be seen below.) So I suppose, if you were looking to discredit my argument, you could say that I’m just weighing in on this because I have a vested interest. As the YACVB is a relatively small client of hers, though, I don’t think it holds much water, but I wanted to be upfront about it. I will say, however, that, through Linette’s involvement, I’ve come to know the staff at the YACVB to be motivated, thoughtful and competent, and I’d hate to think that any of them might lose their jobs in a merger. Furthermore, I happen to be aware of a current project they’ve got underway with a branding firm, looking at the way we position the City going forward, and I’d hate to think that this work of theirs to really get at what makes us different from the cities and towns around us, may be lost in a consolidation with Ann Arbor.
[note: The following pages look even better in real life. I had to trim the tops because the navigation controls kept getting in the way.]
And, when I say that Ypsi’s identity would be lost, by the way, I’m not just being paranoid. Sean Duval, the board chair of the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau told the Ann Arbor News, “It’s absolutely our vision to see one countywide marketing agency, one voice for the Ann Arbor area.”
How can two completely distinct cities speak with a single voice? And why is it that they should have to? Are people really out there, staring at their computer screens, completely bewildered by the fact that two cities less than ten miles apart define themselves differently? Are there people really out there saying, “Wow, I really wanted to go to Ann Arbor for vacation, but I see that there’s a different town a few miles away with a different name and a different idea as to how to promote themselves, and I’m so damned confused that I’m going to stay home”?
Apparently, in the opinion of Joseph Sefcovic, the president of the Washtenaw County Hotel and Motel Association, the answer is, “Yes.” In a letter sent to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners on January 22, Sefcovic wrote, “maintaining two CVBs creates an undeniable identity crises and confusion for our region.”
Have you ever met anyone… even one person… who is confused by the concept that Ann Arbor is one city, and Ypsilanti is another?
Before we go one step further, I’d like to ask Duval and Sefcovic to provide examples of this confusion, and evidence that it has cost Ann Arbor tourism dollars. If it’s as big of a problem as they suggest, I don’t imagine it will be too difficult of a task.
Of course, it’s also possible that this has absolutely nothing to do with confusion, and everything to do with money. There is, after all, a lot of money on the table. And it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Ann Arbor’s hotel owners wanted it all for themselves, to promote their message, and to try to pull more big events into their city, at the expense of Ypsilanti. But who would be so cynical as to suggest that?
Following, from today’s Ann Arbor News, are the financials.
…Every hotel bill in the county includes a 5 percent tax–raised from 2 percent in 2009–that is levied to fund the area’s convention and visitors bureaus. The county keeps 10 percent of the funds raised for administration costs, and then splits the remaining 90 percent between the Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Ypsilanti Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The AAACVB receives 75 percent of the available funding while the YACVB gets the remaining 25 percent. Revenue captured by the tax has risen significantly each of the past two years. The county collected $4.68 million in 2013 and unaudited figures show the tax generated $5.21 million in revenue in 2014.
Under the current revenue splitting contracts, which expire in 2015, the Ypsilanti area bureau received approximately $1.17 million from the taxes collected in 2014 and the Ann Arbor area bureau received about $3.52 million…
Agreeing to give Ypsilanti 25% of a smaller pie may have been more palatable. But, as the pie gets bigger, I have to think there are people in Ann Arbor who are thinking, “Just imagine what we could do with another $1.17 million.”
So, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted on March 4 to call together a task force to look at how the county distributes the monies brought in via the excise tax. They, as I understand it, can’t technically force a merger, but they have the power to shift where the money goes. So, in effect, if they wanted to, they could force a merger to happen, making the members of the Washtenaw County Hotel and Motel Association, and the AAAVCB, very happy… The only people, it would seem, who don’t want this to happen are those of us in Ypsilanti, and it’s not clear to me that we have much power to stop it. Hopefully, I’m wrong about that.
The task force will consist of four Washtenaw County Commissioners; Andy LaBarre (Ann Arbor), Ruth Ann Jamnick (Ypsilanti Township), Ronnie Peterson (Ypsilanti), and Alicia Ping (Saline). If you have an opinion on this, I’d suggest that you write to one or all of them. You’ll find their contact information here.
And here, lastly, are a few random thoughts.
1. The AAACVB gathers sponsors to hosts events (breakfasts, annual dinners, etc). The YACVB, however, actually sponsors events in Ypsilanti. Through their minigrant program, the YACVB sponsors major events, like Elvis Fest, First Fridays, Heritage Fest, etc. If our two organization merge, will the AAACVB contribute money toward these and other events, which are a major economic drivers in Ypsi?
2. The AAACVB charges membership dues. The YACVB, in contrast, provides free services such as photography, consulting, non-membership based listings.
3. The YACVB has a Community Tourism Action Program through which it awards one $10,000 grant to each of our surrounding communities (Chelsea, Dexter, Milan, Manchester, Saline, and Ypsilanti Township) to support new and/or enhanced visitor-based programming. Ann Arbor, I believe, does not do this. Furthermore, the YACVB, over the past year, launched in-depth campaigns for major events in the surrounding areas (i.e. Milan’s Bluegrass Festival, Saline’s Craft Show, seasonal events at Wiard’s in the Township, etc.). These campaigns utilized promoted social media posts, custom illustrations by local artist Caleb Zweifler, Google ad-word campaigns, and microsites on visitypsinow.com, like this one for Dexter.
4. The YACVB has a better social media strategy. Not only does our Visitors and Convention Bureau have a blog, which Ann Arbor doesn’t, but, with one third the budget, they have almost as many social media followers. Ann Arbor has 15K followers, and Ypsi has over 12,500. Why? Because Ypsi has an identity and a large pool of people who care about that identity. And, as for the blog, they have awesome guest bloggers like our historian friend Matt Siegfried. Lastly, after 40 years in business, Ann Arbor has 8 videos on YouTube, whereas we have scores of them, like this one posted a few weeks ago…
Will Ann Arbor produce videos like this for our community? Will they care about the quirkiness of Ypsilanti? Or will we just be a footnote in materials produced about Ann Arbor?
