A Visit Nebraska hoodie featuring the now defunct tagline, “Nebraska, honestly it’s not for everyone.” (Visit Nebraska)
Honestly, Nebraska’s controversial “It’s not for everyone” slogan, was not for everyone.
Executive Director of the Nebraska Tourism Commission John Ricks agreed, as he told the Legislative Appropriations Committee Monday, the 2019 promotion effort “is a thing of the past.”
However, Ricks was emphatic to the committee, the seemingly harsh mantra was actually effective in what it set out to do: boost awareness of Nebraska as a tourist destination.
The tagline was conceived by the Tourism Commission, also known as Visit Nebraska, as a last ditch effort to combat the state’s position as one of the lowest performing states in the nation in out-of-state tourism. “The only way we could get their attention, honestly, was by agreeing with them, and then counteracting it,” Ricks said. The campaign included billboards featuring ironic quips like, “Lucky for you there’s nothing to do here,” and “Famous for our flat, boring landscape.” These underselling catchphrases would be juxtaposed with pictures of people enjoying Nebraska’s unique scenery and attractions.
The attention grabbing motto was born: “Nebraska, honestly it’s not for everyone.”
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- Visit Nebraska
“Bottom line is the tagline is gone,” Ricks finalized, “But now what we’re concentrating on is how we can continue the tremendous momentum from numerous consecutive years of record setting tourism growth in terms of visitor spending, visitation, and the lodging tax that funds our cash basis agency.”
Ricks offered statistics to back up this claim. He said, in 2023, $4.3 billion flowed into the state, through tourism organizations, hospitality businesses, and others.
Visit Nebraska commissioned an advertising effectiveness study which indicated, since 2019, the likelihood of people to visit Nebraska almost doubled, jumping from about 17% to 39%.
As for ‘Awareness of Nebraska,’ Ricks described, “In other words, are we on people’s shopping list? Do they know Nebraska exists? That jumped from around 5% before 2019, to 40%”
Perception of Nebraska in out-of-state markets (neighboring states like Colorado, Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota, Kansas, etc) went from perceiving Nebraska as “the land of nothing to do to,” to a destination “for people with a sense of adventure, a place that has most to offer those who like to explore,” Ricks described.
Additionally, Visit Nebraska’s investments to drive tourism delivered a return on investment according to Ricks, “Every marketing dollar invested by Visit Nebraska in 2023 generated an average of about $20.28 in visitor spending.”
This entire briefing on Nebraska’s retired catchline, was apart of a request from the Tourism Commission to increase their spending authority from the current $7.5 million to $10.5 million.
“Nebraska has resulted in record lodging tax growth, that is actually outpacing our spending authority,” Ricks told the committee, “By allowing the commission to increase the spending authority, consistent with projected lodging tax revenues, will allow us to reinvest lodging tax revenue back into our efforts to promote Nebraska as a tourism destination. This would go a long way in helping to maintain — and could even help increase — the momentum that we’ve built over the past few years.”
Ricks said Visit Nebraska’s 2024 planning is underway, but without a funding increase, they may have to forego promotion in top performing tourism-cities like Chicago and Oklahoma City.
“We’re having great success and I’d like to think that we’re waking a sleeping giant of an industry here,” Ricks delivered with optimism.
The Appropriations Committee took no immediate action on the funding request.