The Arts Drive Opportunity

Secretary Jim Hagen, South Dakota Department of Tourism

As we all know in South Dakota, our state thrives on the visitor industry, and our dedicated, visionary arts and culture sector is one major component of that.

In May, I had the opportunity to attend the State Arts Conference in Rapid City and share some research and information about the work we’re doing at the South Dakota Department of Tourism to better serve the arts. Now I’d like to share some of that information more broadly with the Arts Alive readership.

To start, South Dakota was the very first state in the nation to fully recover to pre-pandemic levels of visitor spending in 2021. This is really vital for the arts community, as half of our state arts agency’s budget comes from a half-penny tax on travel-related spending, and those dollars are passed on to the arts and culture sector through the South Dakota Arts Council grant programs.

At Tourism, our work is to get people to visit and travel within South Dakota. This research is designed to help us do that, and I think it will also help you all develop strategies to attract visitors to your events and spaces. So, please, use this information to your advantage!

Family travel, especially in states like South Dakota, is big business. If you have family-friendly events and spaces, play that up in your marketing. The top five types of trips people are excited about are family travel, seeing scenic beauty, enjoying outdoor activities, road trips, and visiting historical sites. This is good news for South Dakota and for our arts and culture sector. You’re most likely seeing several connections to your spaces and events. We’ve also found that younger generations — Gen Z and Millennials — have a growing appreciation for attending arts events and festivals.

Though we are facing challenges with labor shortages, gas prices, and inflation, Americans are indicating that they are still more motivated to travel than ever before. Some indicate they will make cuts with retail purchases, food and beverage and perhaps travel closer to home to help stay within budgets. This presents another opportunity for our arts and cultural organizations to attract guests from nearby states and even our own folks, right here in South Dakota.

We learned that survey participants believe South Dakota has fewer arts-related offerings than competitor states, but those who recently visited had a much more positive perception about our state after experiencing the arts while they were here. Ultimately, visitors simply may not be aware of the wonderful arts and cultural attractions and experiences in South Dakota, but they are pleasantly surprised when they visit.

At Tourism, we’re going to help with that. One part of our new strategic plan is to advance the development of our destination, and in order to do that, we need to create niche marketing opportunities for the arts.

The State of Create Tourism Passport highlights more than 50 arts events and attractions across the state and is being widely promoted across all of our marketing platforms. It’s sort of like a geocaching game, but users don’t need an app to participate, and they win prizes as they accumulate check-ins at the various sites. Check it out at TravelSouthDakota.com. One of the next things we’ll be working on is developing arts-themed itineraries for people traveling in South Dakota, and we could use all of your help with that. If you have ideas about great stops in your area, we’d love to hear them. The goal with these itineraries is to help people find things to do and maximize their time while visiting. You can find examples on our Travel South Dakota website.

Overall, we’re in really good shape in South Dakota, and we can make the visitor experience even better by increasing awareness of our outstanding arts opportunities. Join us. Be our partners and help us make this vision a reality.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

• Join your local Chamber of Commerce or Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB)

• Become a member of a Regional Tourism Association

• Get your business and event listed on TravelSouthDakota. com

• Check out SDVisit.com for the latest news, research, marketing work, and the Strategic Plan

• Let us know what’s going on with your business or in your community as it pertains to the arts

• Attend the South Dakota Governor’s Conference on Tourism, January 17-19, 2023