The Governor Speaks

Last night at the Awards Gala we got to hear from the Governor and his take on tourism. Here are some of the highlights:

•  The Governor started off joking about vacation ideas to South Dakota for outgoing president George W. Bush-including a trip to Mount Rushmore where nobody would recognize him as the “only president there without a 60-foot granite head.”
•  The Governor congratulated the people in the room for their ability to take on the challenge of the 2010 Initiative to double visitor spending in the state-a goal deemed overly ambitious by some, but not the tourism industry.
•  While other states grew three to four percent annually, South Dakota bucked the trends and experienced six, seven and last year, 8.8% growth in visitor spending. The Governor highlighted many examples of how South Dakotans worked together in 2008 to continue the growth even as gas prices hit a record high.
• And what was visitor spending in 2008? The Governor released the budget number last night. With a plunging economy, South Dakota stayed ahead of the national trend with $967 million, a 2.8% increase. “Growing visitor spending, even when the economy is strong, is a difficult challenge. But growing our visitor numbers nearly 3% on top of the biggest single visitor spending year in our state’s history and doing it in the face of the most difficult economic conditions since the Great Depression is truly remarkable,” he said.

 The Governor closed by sharing his confidence that we can reach our goal of 1.2 billion dollars in 2010. He encouraged the industry to continue to do what we’ve been doing to get through these uncertain economic times. After all-South Dakota is the true American family destination and a great value.