Vermilion Parish tourism gets 3rd $500,000 from BP

The Vermilion Parish Tourist Commission recently learned that it was awarded a third and final $500,000 grant through the BP Gulf Tourism and Seafood Promotion Grant to market the parish as a tourist destination and attract visitors to the parish.
Alison Miller, Executive Director of the Vermilion Parish Tourist Commission, learned about the grant earlier this month. “We were hopeful that BP would like how the Tourist Commission spent the 2013 grant and award us an additional grant. Not every grant recipient received more funding, so we are very excited to have this money. We have made tremendous progress over the last two years getting Vermilion Parish on the tourism map and will use this grant to keep the marketing going.”
Since January 2011, Vermilion Parish has received $1.5 million from BP to market the parish. While the first two grants focused on updating the official tourism website and several brochures, helping festivals with their advertising, and placing ads in over 140 magazines, the focus of this grant is internet based.
“Since this will be the final grant we will receive, the Tourist Commission Board felt that we need to drive more people to our website. Our website has all the information a person would need to plan a trip here,” stated Miller.
From all the ads that have run since 2011, the Tourist Commission has received over 65,700 requests for more information and the 2013 occupancy sales tax revenue was 13 percent higher than 2012. All of this information was included in her quarterly reports to BP and Miller believes these numbers are what helped to receive more funds.
“We have to prove that the grant was used to increase visitation and our numbers show that tourism is on the rise.”
The spending breakdown is as follows: $206,600 for broadcast media, internet advertising and marketing; $75,300 for the production and distribution of parish-wide brochures and printed material, promotional items and marketing; $19,250 for state and regional promotional buy-ins; $123,850 for print advertising and $75,000 for marketing assistance to festival and events.
Award letters were sent to the qualifying festivals and events that have been granted funds to help advertise their festivals. The letters let the festival organizers know how much money they have to spend and the process for spending grant funds. According to Miller, “The main purpose of the grant is to attract more tourists to the parish. By helping the festivals and events increase their advertising, we can accomplish the goals set forth in the grant contract.”
“Having been awarded this type of grant for three years in a row is wonderful. It means instead of having $63,500 to market the parish from 2011 to 2014, we will have had $1,500,000, which is great considering our regular total operating budget is $60,000 a year,” stated Miller.
The Tourist Commission has to spend the grant by the end of the year.