FW invades NYC!
#1
Posted 12 January 2005 - 07:07 PM
Leaders hope cattle, cars will draw tourists
By David Wethe
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - Look out, New York. Here come the cattle.
Five Texas longhorn steers that are usually in the daily trail drives at the Fort Worth Stockyards will soon be shipped to New York City's Times Square along with two NASCAR race cars to promote Fort Worth tourism on Jan. 26.
Officials for the Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau said Tuesday that the $50,000 trip is one of the largest promotional stunts they have ever done.
Doug Harman, the bureau's president and chief executive, said it is important to highlight the second NASCAR Nextel Cup race coming to the city's Texas Motor Speedway this year.
"Around the country, the knowledge of Texas Motor Speedway is not nearly as great as we'd want it to be," said Harman, who is one of about 20 Cowtown dignitaries expected to make the trip. "The contrasting aspects of cattle and cars is pretty dramatic."
Others going include Bruton Smith, chairman of Speedway Motor Sports, the owner of Texas Motor Speedway; Eddie Gossage, the speedway's general manager; and Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief.
Shipping the cattle accounts for about one-fifth of the trip's cost.
The purpose of the trip is to host mostly New York-based journalists from daily newspapers, business magazines and sports publications and tell them what Fort Worth has to offer.
The bureau has made media trips to New York since 1997.
As it did during its last trip in 2003, the bureau will rent part of the ABC television studios at Broadway and 44th Street.
This year, the bureau will also pay to use the skinny block wedged between Broadway and Seventh Avenue. That's where it will set up a pen to house the longhorns for a couple of hours.
"We've done a lot of conventions and special appearances," said Kristin Liggett, trail boss for the Fort Worth Herd. "This would be the longest trip they would have taken by a long shot."
Told ya this was awesome!
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#2
Posted 12 January 2005 - 07:25 PM
"Keep Fort Worth Folksy!
#3 gdvanc
Posted 12 January 2005 - 09:57 PM
"The contrasting aspects of cattle and cars is pretty dramatic."
Yeah, very. That kind of contrast reminds me of a line from one of my favorite movies:
Elwood: What kind of music do you usually have here?
Claire: Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western.
#4
Posted 26 January 2005 - 10:55 AM
#5
Posted 26 January 2005 - 11:29 AM
I'm probably in the minority, but I don't see how big hats, fake cattle drives, and Nascar in Times Square is going to get many New Yorkers to visit Fort Worth.
#6
Posted 26 January 2005 - 12:50 PM
I sure wish they could see other aspects of Fort Worth.
I'm probably in the minority, but I don't see how big hats, fake cattle drives, and Nascar in Times Square is going to get many New Yorkers to visit Fort Worth.
Who wants yankees in Cowtown anyway? New York City!?! Get a rope!
#8
Posted 26 January 2005 - 08:27 PM
QUOTE(cjyoung @ Jan 26 2005, 12:29 PM)
I sure wish they could see other aspects of Fort Worth.
I'm probably in the minority, but I don't see how big hats, fake cattle drives, and Nascar in Times Square is going to get many New Yorkers to visit Fort Worth.
Maybe thats why tourism here isnt as great as we'd like. You can't even find a FW visitor guide or an ad for the city without seeing the longhorn logo or a pic of the stockyards plastered everywhere. Cowtown and the image of the old west is being burned.....er..... "branded" into the minds of everyone in the country. Blame old fashion city leaders for pushing that.
Anyways...Im sure there are people who really want to see the wild west. Too bad the Stockyards is basically just a street (Exchange Ave?). The pics in magazines and such make it look like a grand theme park! Gee one westernized street that represents the whole city. What a rip-off for tourists! lol
#9
Posted 26 January 2005 - 09:30 PM
[quote]QUOTE(cjyoung @ Jan 26 2005, 12:29 PM)
Maybe thats why tourism here isnt as great as we'd like. You can't even find a FW visitor guide or an ad for the city without seeing the longhorn logo or a pic of the stockyards plastered everywhere. Cowtown and the image of the old west is being burned.....er..... "branded" into the minds of everyone in the country. Blame old fashion city leaders for pushing that.
Anyways...Im sure there are people who really want to see the wild west. Too bad the Stockyards is basically just a street (Exchange Ave?). The pics in magazines and such make it look like a grand theme park! Gee one westernized street that represents the whole city. What a rip-off for tourists! lol
[/quote]
You make great points.
We don't keep the consumer of our image in mind when we (the city) go out and promote our city as a tourist or business destination. This promotion is really a branding exercise for our city (i.e. forming an image of our city in the minds of the public).
Will the national and international travel writers care if we have a motor speedway? Probably not. While our local history involving the cattle business is distinct to former western frontier towns, (at least puts us in a relatively narrow category) our having a motor speedway in no way makes Fort Worth distinctive in the eyes of the nation or world. Promoting the presence of the Texas Motor Speedway as a major tourist attraction or as a city-defining attraction for Fort Worth sends the message that "those guys think that having stock car racing is really impressive and something to be proud of". Folks, its just not that impressive or in any way a differentiating factor for us.
This tells me that the leaders at the Convention and Visitors Bureau are too myopic, and fail to understand the perspectives and tastes of the traveling public from around the nation and the world. Quite frankly, I think they are screwing up our city's image.
The promotion of the cattle industry stuff and the stock car racing needs to be coupled with a massive dose of "you'd be shocked to know that this community also has a thriving arts scene". Stock cars and rodeos by themselves makes us look more one dimensional than we are. It sells us short.
Honestly, nothing says "bubba" to people outside of the South like stock car racing does. That image the CVB is promoting is unbelievably counterproductive to our economic development efforts. Just try to attract a talented, young, well-educated person to move to a city which is perceived as only having rodeos, stock car races, and country & western bars as activities.
Talented young people are repelled by such imagery. So the CVB might fill our hotels and motels with tourists looking to buy a straw hat and have their picture taken on a mechanical bull, but the damage that such branding does to our image as a place to start and grow a forward-looking business is tremendous. That's a sign of poor strategic leadership.
#10 ghughes
Posted 26 January 2005 - 10:39 PM
My point is that there are a lot of really interesting places for tourists to go. Fort Worth is just in the middle of the pack, if not lagging. But it's not a lack of promotion, it's a lack of destination! There's not enough "here" here to cause people to mosey across too much real estate to visit us. Regional, maybe. National, I don't think so.
But Urbndwlr hits the nail on the head with the note that our goofy homespun promotions hurt us where we need to be doing our best. Cities and regions will prosper to the extent that they can grow top-tier business and industry; companies that serve the world will bring home the bacon. We need to keep the ones we have and get more, too. And that will require a lot of sophisticated talent. Not a parade of steers in the Big Apple.
That said, tossing ourselves into the planet's media center will probably benefit us in intangible ways, too. If nothing else, some inquisitive folks will get out an atlas...
#11
Posted 27 January 2005 - 10:42 AM
The reason tourism here is not as great as we'd like is that we've got a seriously overblown view of our fair city. Yes, Fort Worth is special. But darn it, so is Des Moines! And Cincinnati and Pittsburgh have some really neat things about them. Ever check out Charleston, Savannah, St. Augustine, Key West? New Orleans is pretty great in some respects, as is Tuscon.
My point is that there are a lot of really interesting places for tourists to go. Fort Worth is just in the middle of the pack, if not lagging. But it's not a lack of promotion, it's a lack of destination! There's not enough "here" here to cause people to mosey across too much real estate to visit us. Regional, maybe. National, I don't think so.
But Urbndwlr hits the nail on the head with the note that our goofy homespun promotions hurt us where we need to be doing our best. Cities and regions will prosper to the extent that they can grow top-tier business and industry; companies that serve the world will bring home the bacon. We need to keep the ones we have and get more, too. And that will require a lot of sophisticated talent. Not a parade of steers in the Big Apple.
That said, tossing ourselves into the planet's media center will probably benefit us in intangible ways, too. If nothing else, some inquisitive folks will get out an atlas...
I agree with the point about destinations. I really don't like the cowboy stuff, but if we do it I would like it first class...new arena hosting pro rodeo and bull riding championships, cowboy museums and theme parks in the stockyards, massive western themed resort hotels, etc.
Instead, we're just the big mediocre "cowtown" near Dallas.
#12
Posted 27 January 2005 - 10:53 AM
Horns and Lots of Pushing: Visitors From Texas Blend In
By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: January 27, 2005
The invitation from the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau promised an old-fashioned cattle drive, in which every detail "from the saddles to the chaps, from the hats to the boots, is historically accurate."
But when the "Big Drive of 2005" got under way yesterday, it was probably not the kind Charles Goodnight or any of the other great cattle drive pioneers would have recognized. First, there was the giant Toys "R" Us and the bank of klieg lights looming over the herd, five longhorns in all, which lowed occasionally, relieved themselves and looked a little concerned whenever a taxi pulled up alongside them.
Second, the only real drive involved was the one of more than 30 hours, in a trailer, from Fort Worth, Tex., to Pompton Plains, N.J., where the cattle were kept Tuesday night. They were taken to Times Square yesterday afternoon to help the mayor of Fort Worth, Michael J. Moncrief, stage an unlikely media event to help promote his city, the country's 20th largest.
The organizers had wanted to recreate the cattle drives that Fort Worth holds twice daily for tourists along East Exchange Avenue in the city's historic stockyards district. But in New York, the mayor's office and other city departments were not crazy about the idea of several 1,200-pound steers with 7-foot horn spans plodding down Broadway at rush hour. And so the cattle drive basically became a cattle loiter on the southeast corner of Broadway and 44th Street, where the longhorns were penned on the street under the watchful eyes of four drovers (not cowboys) on horseback.
Douglas Harmon, the president of the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that when bureau officials came up with the idea of staging a drive through Times Square, they knew it was a long shot. "I think we always assumed," he said, "if there was going to be any movement of the cattle, it was going to be minimal."
Charles Boswell, the Fort Worth city manager, sounded a little disappointed yesterday. "There obviously were some logistical challenges," he said, "but I think we could have pulled it off."
Driven or penned, the cattle drew a decent crowd who listened as Mr. Moncrief sang the praises of his city, which he described as the home not only of cowboys but also of culture, including the Kimbell Art Museum, the quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, being held this year, and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
Yesterday, though, the emphasis was much more on cowboys and also on one of Fort Worth's other horsepower attractions, the Texas Motor Speedway, which was represented by a colorful, low-slung Nascar racecar parked near the longhorns.
Dario Vissero, a sales manager, was much more interested in the steers. "I was just walking by, and I said to myself, 'Now I got to see this,' " he said, taking a picture with his cellphone camera.
But Lenny Messina, a pastry chef standing near him, was not nearly as impressed. "Between Spider-Man and the Naked Cowboy, this is no big deal," he said, referring to the underwear-wearing guitar player who has become a fixture in Times Square but, with the temperatures hovering around freezing yesterday, was not around to pitch in.
"They should have just driven these things down Broadway and not told anybody," Mr. Messina said. "Around here? Nobody would have noticed."
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