Destination Branding Project

Destination Branding Project Page

Summary

The City has hired a consultant to assist with destination branding and tourism. This project aims to create a marketing campaign that highlights all the cool things about Puyallup the downtown core and helps Puyallup to be known as a place where people want to be, and that is attractive to both locals and visitors.

To assist us, the City has hired Rotator Creative, out of Tacoma, who will embark on a series of outreach methods to gain an understanding of what makes Puyallup a destination for visitors. Over the course of several months, Rotator will engage with local stakeholders and the community at large. The results of these findings will be presented to the project team and City Council, with a plan for attracting visitors to Puyallup. This may include the design of a new tourism brand that inspires visitation to Puyallup.

  1. Background
  2. Outreach
  3. Contact
  4. Documents

Background

Retail, hospitality (food and hotel accommodations), and tourism are critical to the livelihood of Puyallup, bringing billions of dollars into the local economy and employing tens of thousands of workers. Spending by locals and tourists has a real and measurable positive impact on our economy. COVID-19 had a devastating impact on retail, hospitality, and tourism in the City of Puyallup, with a 25 percent decline in food and hotel accommodation spending at the start of the pandemic, and a slow crawl back to normal numbers. The historic cancellation of the Washington State Fair in the fall of 2020, along with the cancellation of numerous associated events such as the popular summer concert series, led to a loss of over $1 million in ticket sales taxes alone. Events at the Fair and downtown Puyallup draw almost 4 million visitors annually to our city, with about $50 million of indirect spending at local businesses.

Building on this success of a marketing campaign to shop and dine locally in downtown Puyallup during the winter of 2020, the City applied for and was awarded $40,000 in Lodging Tax Funds to continue its destination marketing efforts.

In 2021, the City sent out a Request For Proposals (RFP) to hire a marketing consultant that would help create a brand for Puyallup and incorporate it into a tourism marketing campaign. The City received 12 responses and selected Rotator Creative to lead this project.

In the coming months ahead, Rotator will begin researching and learning more about Puyallup from residents and stakeholders – what is good, what is great, and what people love about it. Rotator will take this information and work with City staff to create a marketing campaign that encourages both visitors and locals to explore and discover Puyallup’s rich, dynamic lifestyle that is unique from other cities.