The New Age of Ethnic Marketing - Brief Article

Brandweek, March 19, 2001

Multiethnic marketing within the domestic tourist industry has not been limited to the big cosmopolitan cities known for their rich immigrant histories and still vibrant ethnic communities. It may not be surprising that there are organized walking tours of the ethnic neighborhoods of New York City; more remarkable is to find the same type of pitch being used by the tourism board of Missouri, right in the middle of America's supposedly bland heartland--an indication of just how pervasive the ethnic appeal has become. At every major hotel and at the tourist bureaus throughout the state, the visitor can find The Multi-Cultural Travel and Tour Guide. This slick 80-page publication, produced by the departments of Economic Development and Tourism and endorsed by the governor, features chapters on Missouri's African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian heritages. With a special pullout calendar of events, it encourages visitors to spend their tourist dollars by attending ethnic festivals or powwows, to feast on authentic cuisine and purchase artifacts from ethnic vendors. Kansas City's annual multicultural fair is listed as an "Ethnic Enrichment Festival." Indeed, tourists simultaneously "enrich" both their cultural understandings and Missouri's local coffers.

One of the earliest examples of emphasizing the ethnic heritage of a particular locale to stimulate tourism and commerce is an initiative based in the Midwest as well. In the late 1950s, the Michigan town of Frankenmuth, originally settled a century earlier by German immigrants from Bavaria, fell victim to Eisenhower-era interstate highway construction. Traveling salesmen and other visitors who would usually make stopovers, often to dine at the restaurant in the Fischer Hotel, known for its "all you can eat" chicken dinners, were passing right by. In 1958 the owners of the Fischer decided to remodel and adopt a Bavarian look. They changed the name of the hotel to the Bavarian Inn, leading the way to the revitalization of the local economy Soon the entire downtown business community had reinvented itself as a German village, with the aromas of strudel and schnitzel emanating from bakeries and restaurants, Bavarian music piped into the streets and a glockenspiel chiming every hour, buildings adorned with ginge rbread towers and Bavarian flags, and even bilingual street signs.

Now Frankenmuth, a veritable Bavarian theme park, is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the state with three million visitors a year. Karne Zehnder, the manager of the Bavarian Inn, calls Frankenmuth "a very themed town. You know, Disney does a wonderful job with theming ... it is so important these days. People like to experience different themes, ethnic themes... we try to be as authentic as possible?

In general, the ethnic revival and its marketplace manifestations are no longer the domain of inner-city neighborhoods, where immigrants have traditionally made their homes. Not only are some of the foreign-born themselves relocating to more affluent suburban areas, but American-born people interested in accentuating their cultural heritages reside throughout the country in rural and suburban areas, in big cities and small, in distinctive ethnic enclaves and nondescript dispersed aggregations.