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Jul 13, 2010

How to save Arizona’s tourism industry: Silence Brewer

NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 13, 2010

TUCSON – Gov. Brewer is addressing the 2010 Governor’s Conference on Tourism today, where she will undoubtedly discuss how to repair Arizona’s image. Yet no one has inflicted deeper wounds on Arizona’s tourism industry, economy and jobs than Brewer with her reckless, inaccurate comments about our great state.

“A real leader shouldn’t need a quarter-million-dollar PR campaign -- funded by taxpayers – to try to undo the damage she has done by bashing her own state,” said Luis Heredia, Arizona Democratic Party executive director. “I hope her speech today includes an apology.”

Brewer’s fear-mongering is costing Arizona much more than $250,000. How do you put a price tag on this kind of bad publicity?

• The Washington Post: The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded."
• NY Daily News: Much of the damage to the state's image has been self-inflicted … According to the Tourism & Economic Development Task Force, Gov. Brewer and other politicians need to stop making Arizona out to be unsafe if they want to bring back visitors.
• CBS News: Ironically, Brewer's own high-profile statements with respect to immigration may be exacerbating the problems Arizona's tourism industry has faced in the wake of the debate over its law, a hotel spokesperson reportedly suggested… She recently released a web video highlighting signs in the Arizona desert that warn visitors to stay away.
• Arizona Daily Star: The short version of (the tourism industry) recommendation: Stop telling people Arizona is unsafe… The responsible include Gov. Jan Brewer who has talked openly about crime she said is linked to illegal immigrants, including smuggling drugs, extorting people and terrorizing families, even contending on national television that law enforcement has found beheaded bodies in the Arizona desert.
• azcentral.com/Brahm Resnik’s blog: Gov. Jan Brewer's response to the tourism industry’s SB1070 crisis -- which the governor herself isn't helping with talk of "beheadings" -- has been to form a task force that will hire a PR firm that will create a message to sell Arizona to the rest of the country.
• Journalist Howard Fischer on KAET’s “Horizon”: “Every time she opens up her mouth, there’s a hundred thousand dollars of bad publicity.”

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