The 'Land of Enchantment' Needs a Lift

What do you think – is New Mexico a well-kept secret? What would your state slogan be?

New Mexico calls itself the Land of Enchantment. But the spell isn't working all that well.

Overnight tourist trips in New Mexico have dropped by nearly 10% in the past three years, and spending on everything from souvenir magnets to turquoise jewelry fell by hundreds of millions of dollars.

When state tourism officials convened focus groups in Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles to ask prospective travelers about their perceptions of New Mexico, the same depressing descriptions kept cropping up: "Arid." "Barren." "Dull."

Also: "Close to Arizona."

So state officials are launching a $2.5 million effort to rebrand New Mexico as a place of charm and character, adventure, excitement—and really good green chili cheeseburgers. As a model, the state is looking north to Colorado, which routinely gets praised in focus groups as "majestic," "glorious" and "heavenly."

But rebranding a state can be a risky proposition. New Jersey hired a consultant a few years ago to come up with a new tourism slogan. The result? "New Jersey: We'll Win You Over." That may have been an improvement over its 1970s tagline, "New Jersey's Got It," which inspired innumerable jokes about venereal disease. But state officials thought "We'll Win You Over" sounded defensive and spiked the campaign.

New Mexico, too, has had some marketing misfires. One recent come-hither campaign played off conspiracy theories about UFO landings in Roswell, N.M., and featured bug-eyed green aliens. The state's Rose Parade float in 2008 featured the creatures.

By Jessica Austerlitz - Art at a gallery in Santa Fe.

"I don't know that it resonated," said Veronica Valencia, who recently joined the Tourism Department as marketing director.

The department also has a new tourism secretary, Monique Jacobson, who comes to Santa Fe fresh off a decade spent marketing PepsiCo Inc. brands such as Gatorade and Quaker Oats.

The way Ms. Jacobson sees it, New Mexico ought to be an easier sell than warm porridge.

"Oatmeal was tough because people knew they didn't like the texture," Ms. Jacobson said. "With New Mexico, it's not an issue of people not liking what we have to offer. It's a question of them not knowing what we have to offer."

Indeed, the focus group members seemed clueless about New Mexico, which is celebrating its centennial. It entered the union as the 47th state on Jan. 6, 1912. Yet several focus group members wondered aloud whether they needed passports to visit. Others, apparently confusing Albuquerque with Acapulco, said they had heard good things about the landlocked state's beaches.

Even some tourists who ventured into New Mexico over the holidays had low expectations. Kamran Mogharreban, who is 57, came from southern Illinois to visit his brother—and was surprised to find himself enjoying touring museums in Albuquerque, shopping in Santa Fe and taking the commuter rail that zips between the two cities. It wasn't at all what he had expected of New Mexico. "I thought it would be more backward," Mr. Mogharreban said.

The tourism department hasn't yet announced its new slogan, but Ms. Jacobson says it will be built around the premise that New Mexico offers visitors "adventure steeped in culture."

A key goal: attracting younger families. State figures show 24% of tourists who stay overnight in New Mexico are 65 or older—a higher proportion than in nearby Arizona, Colorado and Utah, where on average 17% of overnight visitors are senior citizens.

Those demographics matter because older visitors tend to spend less—and aren't as likely to generate a positive buzz for the state by tweeting about only-in-New Mexico experiences such as llama trekking in Taos, spelunking in Carlsbad Caverns or tramping in the dusty footsteps of Billy the Kid.

By Jessica Austerlitz -  The entrance to Carlsbad Caverns, where tourists watch the bats leaving the cave at dusk.

At the moment, fully a third of overnight visitors to New Mexico are just passing through, state officials said. That pains Lynnae Molidor, who owns a clothing boutique in the historic Santa Fe Plaza. "People think New Mexico is all hoity-toity, high-end—or, for the real out-there people, there's Roswell" and flying saucers, Ms. Molidor said. "They don't think there's an in-between."

To focus all its firepower on the new campaign, set to launch in the spring, the Tourism Department has cut some staff at its promotional magazine and this year scrapped its tradition of entering an elaborate float in the Rose Parade.

That leaves $2.5 million for advertising—far less than some neighboring states spend. Arizona's governor recently announced a $7 million investment in marketing. Colorado spends more than $12 million a year.

On the other hand, in this era of perpetual budget crises, many states have eliminated promotions altogether.

Washington State recently closed its tourism department and Connecticut's was shut down for stretches of 2009 and 2010. (As a result, the state didn't pay its dues to a regional marketing collaboration—which retaliated by erasing Connecticut from the map of New England on its website.)

In New Mexico, Ms. Jacobson, the tourism secretary, says she's confident she can leverage her limited resources to build "a strong, iconic brand."

Some of the state's biggest fans, however, aren't so sure they want her to succeed.

Jimmy Dietz, a veterinarian from Houston, regularly brings his family to ski at Taos. He can't get over the peace, the lack of crowds, the friendly and attentive service, he says. In fact, he loves New Mexico so much that he has stopped touting it to his friends, for fear that an invasion of tourists would ruin the small-town charm.

"New Mexico is one of the greatest-kept secrets in the U.S.," Mr. Dietz says. "And it's nice because of that."

Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com

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