Gubernatorial Candidates Talk Tourism
They All Agree To Spend More If Elected
By Jeff Cohen - WNPR
Published: Sep 29, 2010
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Tom Foley (L), Dan Malloy (R)
Photo:Christine Stuart/CTNewsJunkie.com
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Gubernatorial Candidates Talk Tourism
Three candidates for governor met this morning for a forum on the future of the state's culture and tourism industries. WNPR's Jeff Cohen reports.
Len Wolman is a developer. He built Mohegan Sun, he built the Connecticut Convention Center, and he's the master developer at Hartford's Adriaen's Landing.
And he says that there are fewer visitors coming into the state now -- in large part because the state cut its budget for tourism marketing to a dollar.
"Some of it is related to the economy, which is just natural, but it's compounded exponentially by the fact that you've cut the dollars."
Like hundreds of others who packed a ballroom at the convention center, Wolman wants to know how the state's gubernatorial candidates would improve the situation.
Not surprisingly, Republican Tom Foley, Democrat Dan Malloy, and Independent Tom Marsh all say they'd spend more than the $1 dollar Governor Jodi Rell and the legislature spend on tourism marketing.
"We need to invest a minimum of $15 million dollars in promoting your institutions in this state and beyond its state borders..."
Foley saw Malloy's $15 million bet, and raised it.
"If Dannel's for $15 million dollars, I'm for $15 and a quarter million. How's that? We'll bid it up from there."
Malloy: That's called flattery.
Foley: Yeah. There you go.
And that started the debate over who had the $15 million idea first.
Malloy: When kids used to come to school and they didn't have their homework, they said the dog ate it. Tom just ate my idea.
Foley: I hope you didn't put a lot of homework into that number. Anybody who knows a little bit about tourism looked at what we spent in the past and what our neighbors are spending -- $15 million would be a pretty easy number to come up with.
A new poll shows Marsh, the independent candidate, not in serious contention. This response to a question on sports and entertainment may not have helped things.
"I'm from St. Louis. I'm a Cardinals fan. So I don't quite get the Red Sox -- well, I get it, the Red Sox/Yankees thing..."
Malloy leads Foley by three points in the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
For WNPR, I'm Jeff Cohen.
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