By AARON MUELLER
Niles Daily Star

Melinda Michael, the executive director for Four Flags Area Council on Tourism, has seen many people from all over the country and Canada come into her office and talk about the Pure Michigan television commercials.

“People love the campaign,” Michael said. “People from all over just love the commercials. It reaches anybody.”

But those commercials may become a thing of the past, considering the massive cuts thrown down by state lawmakers on the Pure Michigan campaign. Due to state budget problems, Pure Michigan has been given $5.4 million for this fiscal year that started in October, compared to the $30 million the program received from the state last fiscal year.

Organizers say a summer advertising campaign will not happen unless the state gives a significant amount of money in the next few weeks.

“Those commercials take a lot of footage,” Michael said. “It has overhead shots. It takes a lot of money for that.”

Pure Michigan is a national advertising campaign launched in 2006 and features the voice of actor and Western Michigan alum Tim Allen for its commercials.

Michael and other tourism officials across the state have been urged by the Michigan Lodging and Tourism Association to contact their local senators and encourage them to support the Pure Michigan campaign.

Although Michael believes Pure Michigan is valuable to the state as a whole, she doesn’t expect a decrease in funding for the campaign to affect tourism too much in Niles.

“I would like to think it won’t affect us,” she said. “Same difference with the Benton Harbor-St. Joe area, because we each do our own individual campaigning and marketing. It’s up to us as individual tourism offices to market our areas to the best of our ability.”

Michael says the Four Flags Area Council on Tourism advertises in local newspapers and radio stations. She also writes a quarterly column that is printed in newspapers across the country.
Despite having scaled back funding, Pure Michigan launched a new campaign this week called “Choose Michigan,” an effort to market the state as a place to call home. The campaign is looking for 1,000 stories from residents of why they call Michigan home.

More info can be found at www.puremichiganliving.com.