Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce: Ads already working

Earlier this week, the Myrtle Beach City Council voted to create a

1 percent sales tax to pay for out-of-market tourism advertising. Proceeds from the tax will give the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce $172 million over 10 years for its marketing efforts.

The debate over the tax was somewhat polarizing, with supporters saying the money is needed to attract tourists and opponents saying local residents pay enough sales tax.

But there is another question that remains obscured: Do the marketing campaigns actually work?

The chamber says they do, and they have the numbers to back them up.

The chamber started running TV ads in the middle of May in about 60 markets, focusing on areas where visitors would be likely to visit Myrtle Beach and on markets where nonstop air service is offered to the Grand Strand. For the second part of the month, the ads cost about $300,000, said Scott Schult, the chamber's vice president for marketing.

Since the ads started running, the number of calls the chamber has received for vacation inquiries has skyrocketed. The most the chamber received before the campaign was 53 calls in a day; since then, it has gotten between 438 and 1,357.

Similarly, the number of people that are searching on the Internet for "visit Myrtle Beach" - the slogan that is featured in the commercials and the name of its tourist Web site, www.visitmyrtle beach.com - has also risen.

Before the campaign, barely 100 unique visitors were going to the chamber's Web site after typing "visit Myrtle Beach" into search engines. Now, it's more like 300, and chamber officials say it shows people are responding to the ads.

Visits to the chamber's Web site overall are up

25 percent through April of this year compared to last year. Print advertising also plays a role - $25,000 worth of advertising in the AARP magazine yielded more than 3,000 inquiries, the chamber says.

Advertising is especially crucial now, said Brad Dean, the president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, because many travelers are waiting until the last minute to book their reservations due to financial uncertainty.

"There are many travelers that have yet to make their final plans for the summer, so the late advertising push should help capture some of that business," he said.

Marion Edmonds, a spokesman for the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism, said the chamber's advertising data shows the campaign is working. Only time will tell, though, how many of the people who watch a TV commercial will actually end up visiting.

"Clearly they have found some markets to advertise in where there is an interest in Myrtle Beach, and that's always a good sign," Edmonds said. "If they did it in markets that were already saturated and where people didn't feel like they needed any information, they wouldn't call."