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Is bombastic media coverage wrecking the Gulf Coast’s economy?

Mike Riggs Contributor
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The tourism business thrives on perception. Think billboards and TV spots, deals and discounts, pretty pictures, ambiance. You can’t sell a place if you can’t sell a frame of mind. Think Nashville after those pictures of a flooded Grand Ole Opry hit the wires, or a dusted and distraught Manhattan in the days and weeks after 9/11. One could argue that nothing makes a regional catastrophe — like the Gulf oil spill — worse than when the rest of the country, or even the rest of the world, perceives the entire region to be damaged beyond visitation.

Members of the tourism industry say this crucial element of the Gulf Coast economy hangs in the balance, and with it, $94 billion in annual revenue across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

New Orleans, for instance, sits 100 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, but most newspapers dateline their stories from that city instead of the tiny beach towns where oil has actually washed ashore. Some of the cable networks also base their coverage out of New Orleans, combining videos of dying birds and brown waves shot an hour and a half south of the city with video shot in New Orleans. “This visual can be misleading,” said Kelly Schulz of the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“Many of their television reports come from the riverfront in the heart of the New Orleans tourist district. So if our customers in Washington, D.C., turn on their TV and see water in the background, they may think the oil is in New Orleans.”

It’s not just visual confusion that poses a risk to tourism. Consider that most outlets refer to the coastal region, which runs from Los Fresnos, Texas, to Marco Island, Fla. — -a distance of more than 1,500 miles — as one place: the Gulf Coast.

It’s almost as if media coverage is contaminating the Gulf at a faster rate than the oil.

According to Jennifer Spann of the Mississippi Development Authority, “The phones just aren’t ringing as much” in Mississippi’s coastal towns. Her evidence is anecdotal, as her state has yet to compile comprehensive economic impact data for the tourism industry, but she’s heard from fishing guides and hoteliers, and business isn’t what it should be this time of year. This is somewhat maddening for Mississippi residents for one very simple reason: Their coast isn’t contaminated. From Pascagoula to Pearlington is nothing but clean beach. And that’s not just according to Spann. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which publishes maps several times a week showing which parts of the Gulf Coast are contaminated, has given Mississippi the all-clear on nearly every inch of coast.

In fact, the total number of beaches contaminated by the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill is relatively small, according to the NOAA.

But based on media reports, you could be forgiven if you thought the entire Gulf Coast was one big tar slick. This has tourism promoters scrambling for marketing that will keep local economies in all four states from collapsing.

“We need to get on this now instead of waiting three months,” said Kristy Chandler at the U.S. Travel Association. “There are 1 million jobs on the line.”

U.S. Travel is working with state organizations to drive travel to unaffected beaches in the hopes that positive reports from these areas will keep visitors coming through August, and national companies that have a stake in the industry’s success are pitching in as well. In an effort to encourage people to visit the beach, both Trip Advisor and Travelocity have waved cancellation fees in the event that the beaches become contaminated after the trip has been scheduled. State organizations have several million dollars from BP to work with, and the Panama City Beach Convention and Visitors Bureau has invested in 25 digital billboards across the Southeast which update every couple of hours with pictures taken that day at the city’s beach.

Schulz said that the media should keep reporting aggressively on the spill. “We acknowledge what a catastrophe it is,” she said. “But we don’t want to make this disaster worse by jeopardizing the tourism industry, which employs 70,000 people in New Orleans alone.”

Even then, Schulz added, there’s no getting around the fact that “many people just don’t understand geography.”