by Diane Kuehn, Coastal Tourism Specialist, NY Sea Grant
In December 1996, NY Sea Grant conducted a survey of tourism promotion agencies (TPAs) in New York state in cooperation with the New York Sportfishing Promotion Coordinating Committee. The survey was designed to obtain information about which TPAs were currently promoting sportfishing in their counties or regions, and what specific promotional strategies these TPAs were using. A TPA mailing list from the New York State Department of Economic Development Division of Tourism was used. Of the 60 TPAs listed, 47 returned surveys for a return rate of 78%.
Of the 47 TPAs responding to the survey, 33 (70%) indicated that they do promote sportfishing in their county and/or region. Of these 33 TPAs, 15 (45%) indicated that they were involved in some type of regional sportfishing promotion organization. The most commonly listed regional organizations were Seaway Trail, Inc. and the Lake Ontario Sportfishing Promotion Council.
The average amount spent on promoting sportfishing by TPAs was $20,655 in 1996. Although 1996 sportfishing promotion budgets ranged from $0 to $175,698, 60% of the respondents who do promote it actually spent $5,000 or less. On average, 9% of a TPA's tourism promotion budget was spent promoting sportfishing; this ranged from 0% to 37.4%. Dollars spent promoting sportfishing on major bodies of water are listed in Table 1. Statewide, the most promotional dollars were spent on Lake Ontario and the Hudson River.
The fish most commonly promoted by TPAs were bass, trout, walleye, salmon and panfish (Table 2). TPAs that promote sportfishing stated that most of their information about fishing comes from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (97%), local guide and/or charter boat organizations (54%), local sportsmen's clubs (48%), outdoor writers (39%), and other resources such as Sea Grant, county fishery departments, and personal research.
According to responding TPAs, the market regions that they promote sportfishing to the most are counties in New York other than their home county, Pennsylvania, New England, and New Jersey (Table 3). Market regions promoted to in Canada were exclusively the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.
Types of sportfishing promotion were rated according to effectiveness on a scale of 1 to 4 (1 being not effective and 4 being highly effective) and listed in order of effectiveness in Table 4. According to responding TPAs, the most effective forms of promotion were sportfishing promotion brochures, outdoor writers, trade shows, and "other" forms of promotion (primarily television shows and commercials, and fishing derbies). Although WWW homepages received a low effectiveness rating, some TPAs indicated that their homepages hadn't been in operation long enough to determine their true effectiveness.
Sportfishing promotion is an integral part of the promotional programs of 70% of the TPAs in New York State, with these TPAs spending an average of 9% of their annual tourism promotion budgets on it. Statewide, an estimated $867,000 is spent by TPAs for promoting sportfishing (sportfishing promotion efforts of the NYS Department of Economic Development Division of Tourism and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation are not included in this estimate). Angler expenditures from sportfishing in New York were estimated to be $838 million in 1991 (Fedler and Nickum, 1992). Dollars invested in sportfishing promotion are relatively small compared to the expenditures brought into New York state by anglers.
Table 1. Dollars spent on sportfishing promotion by respondents for major bodies of water in New York state.
Lake Ontario*: $403,198**
Hudson River*: 114,000**
Lake Erie*: 69,000**
St. Lawrence River*: 69,000
Lake George*: 30,000
Lake Champlain: $6,000
*TPAs which promote more than one of these bodies of water (i.e., Thousand Islands International Council, Warren County Tourism, and Seaway Trail, Inc.) had their individual sportfishing promotion budgets included in the "dollars spent on promotion" totals for each body of water they promote (i.e., budget overlap exists between some bodies of water).
**The sportfishing promotion budgets of respondents that promote sport-fishing on these bodies of water but that did not provide their sportfishing promotion budgets on the survey were not included in these data.
NOTE: Most of the TPAs' sportfishing promotion budgets used to determine these data were not used exclusively for the bodies of water listed in this table (i.e., these budgets were used to promote other bodies of water also).
Table 2. The percentage of all responding TPAs in New York state that promote each species of fish.
Bass: 60% of respondents promote this species
Trout: 55
Walleye: 43
Salmon: 32
Panfish: 28
Muskellunge: 13
Northern pike: 6
Bullhead: 6
Perch: 4
Saltwater fishing: 2%
Other counties in NY: 97% of repondents promote this market region
Pennsylvania: 73
New England: 53
New Jersey: 50
Canada: 47
Ohio: 37
Other: 17%
Table 4. Types of sportfishing promotion, the percentage of sportfishing-promoting TPAs that use each, and the
effectiveness rating of each (in parentheses). The effectiveness rating is based on a scale of 1 to 4
(1 being not effective, 2 somewhat effective, 3 moderately effective, and 4 highly effective).
Sportfishing promotion brochure: 66% of respondents use it (effectiveness rating: 3.4)
Outdoor writers: 55 (3.3)
Trade shows: 72 (3.3)
Other (TV shows/commercials, fishing derbies): 34 (3.2)
Sportfishing section in county/regional brochure: 62 (3.0)
Participation in sportfishing related organizations: 34 (2.8)
Advertisements: 66 (2.7)
News releases: 48 (2.5)
World Wide Web homepage: 38 (2.4)
Videos: 21% (2.3)
The assistance of all the tourism promotion agencies that replied to this survey is greatly appreciated. I also appreciate the assistance of Cathy Pokines and Bill Hilts, Jr. with reviewing the survey prior to its distribution.
If you have any questions about the results of this survey, please contact NY Sea Grant.
Fedler, A., and D. Nickum. 1992. 1991 Economic Impact of Sportfishing in New York. American Sportfishing Association: Alexandria, VA.
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