It turns out the latest contract to publish Kansas! magazine isn’t the only promotional deal being farmed out of state. Harris News Service reports that a Colorado firm got $100,000 to pitch Kansas stories “to national media and travel guides,” that an Arizona company got $139,462 to market Kansas to foreign companies, and that Midwest Living in Iowa (the new Kansas! magazine publisher) also gets $739,000 to publish the Kansas Visitor Guide every two years. Other state contracts worth $200,000 have gone to firms in Missouri and Florida. From a cost-benefit standpoint, these deals may make perfect sense, but as state Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth, said of the Kansas! magazine deal: “People of Kansas, ya know, are blood. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with rules and regulations requiring that you need to look in your own backyard first before going out of state.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- Rage on Open thread 11/22
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/22
- Chas on Open thread 11/22
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/22
- Boxlock20 on Open thread 11/22
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
11 Comments
I’m just assuming here, but could the reason be they could find no Kansans that would be willing to promote Kansas with a straight face?
Yes – Kansas should be promoting Kansas.This is money not being spent in Kansas.
It might be interesting to find out if there are other states that outsource the promotion of their states. Perhaps Kansas isn’t the only one.
Maybe we should start with having a Kansan as Kansas Governor?
This is it… Wichita is horrible about going out of state for things…
I would love to see the WE to go through and analyze the budgets of each, city, county and state to see where the money is spent, both location and see if its being wasted…
But i hold my breath. I know WE wont write it because its too much work…
Perfect Example;
The city is considering a city wide license for a metro wireless system.
No notice to local vendors, just considering one proposal from a national company. Fortunately i found about it and have now stuck my 3 cents (and about a dozen guys with a lot of money behind them) in to the council to put a stop to it and put it out to local bidding.
This city and state for that matter are only interested in big names. The city, County, and State should by locally and only locally. Keep our tax dollars in state.
Tony makes a reasonable proposition–to a point.When it comes to building streets and roads, local always gets the nod. (If some are potentially using illegal immigrant labor on taxpayer-funded projects, that could be a problem.)
On wireless, I think going with a top-experience-level provider makes a lot more sense. If a contract is issued to a local businessman who doesn’t have the same experience level, he may have to contract with an out-of-state expert service provider (e.g. even Sprint, is now headquartered out-of-state), so you’re potentially looking at a local cost-adding “middleman” who doesn’t do much except insert himself into a chain because he’s locally politically connected.
I mean, forgive me if I am errant here, but it isn’t my current understanding (ignorance?) that Wichita is exactly acknowledged to be a national leader in electronics/wireless communications expertise.
Back to tourism promotion, Arizona, Colorado and Florida have a lot more tourism-promoting expertise than Kansas. So, it makes sense to use experts, to a point.
These states have an abundance of natural tourist-attracting resources. Who here hasn’t been to the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, or the sunny beaches of Florida, and enjoyed the experiences? They have attracted effective promoters to lure people to their attractions. In Florida’s case, this includes multibillion-dollar manmade attractions around Orlando.
Of course, reality intrudes. Kansas doesn’t have doodly-squat to attract tourists. Not that Kansas is alone. Nebraska, Iowa and North Dakota don’t either. South Dakota has very pretty Black Hills, although, for tourists coming from east and west, the Rockies are their primary destination.
The World’s Largest Twine-Ball, a paint-by-numbers ginormous Van Gogh “Sunflowers” knock-off, the World’s Deepest Hand-Dug Well, America’s lowest budget “living history museum that can’t be authentic, because it would be R-rated (hard-drinking saloons, gambling, prostitution) in a religiously conservative state that can’t possibly support this kind of reality-based edu-tainment.
Kansas isn’t only a flyover state. It’s a drive-through state. Tourists who drive to the REAL places they want to get to, just want to get through Kansas as quickly as they can–which is why we should increase the I-70 speed limit to 75, and not ticket any out-of-staters who drive at 85 mph, or below. Why punish them for being sane and sensible?
Maybe we’re hoping that someone from outside our state will see something in Kansas worth promoting, because no one inside the state can sincerely make statements about the virtues of Kansas. We’re the buckle of the Bible Belt, and as such we hold back the bulging waistline of moral conservatism that flies in the face of art and entertainment. Art and entertainment that make a place worthy of visiting. Creative people tend to have liberal views and some have ‘alternative lifestyles,’ which are not welcome here in Kansas.
Many of you all seem to be missing the point here…This is not about what Kansas has to offer or not. It’s about the the use of out of state vendors to publish/print these periodicals. The reason this has gone to out of state vendors is because there is no company in the state remotely qualified to do the job. Well maybe remotely, but would you want to invest your $$$ with a company who is only remotely qualified?
If the state had perhaps used an ad agency from out of state maybe we wouldn’t have the laughing stock of state tourism/economic development campaigns that we have. (Sorry had to get my jab in on that one)
SOP on this kind of stuff is use home grown talent if they can do the job…if not use the best you can get for the money. Unless the state has a “Homer” law, (must use in state companies), anybody who argues against that simple proposition has never run, let alone understand, a business or had similar responsibilities in government.
We NEED a Local Purchase Preference in both State and Local purchasing processes! Our governments are sending TONS of money off into other states when there are competent, experienced vendors RIGHT HERE that employ citizens RIGHT HERE! Wise up, folks: we need these protections NOW!