Star Tribune
Minnesota makes ‘historic investment’ — $25 million to market the state to tourists, new residents
Ads selling Americans on a move to Minnesota will launch in March across the country in the state’s first-ever national brand campaign to inspire people to move to the Land of 10,000 Lakes.
The new $2 million campaign is part of a “historic investment” in state funding to market to both tourists and prospective new residents. Last year, the Legislature approved more than $25 million in new funding for Explore Minnesota, the state’s tourism arm, over the next two years, the first time its budget has increased in more than a decade.
“Minnesota needed to have a larger voice in the conversation around the country about what is unique to us and what we have to offer,” Explore Minnesota Executive Director Lauren Bennett McGinty said. “We were really able to make a case that now is the time to invest in talking about Minnesota on a bigger scale.”
The legislation allows Explore Minnesota to bolster national ad campaigns in its bid to elevate the state as a top-tier destination. But the funding also broadened Explore Minnesota’s mission to go beyond travel, aiming to expand the state’s workforce. To do that, the Legislature approved $11 million to launch Explore Minnesota for Business, a new division to attract new residents.
That will help Minnesota keep up with neighboring states and Midwest destinations, Bennett McGinty said, citing Michigan’s new $20 million marketing campaign to attract new residents. But the effort is also needed to fill critical jobs. Minnesota’s 3.1% unemployment rate — lower than the national rate — means the state has more job openings than workers.
Boosting marketing for tourism and attracting new residents go hand in hand, since visitors to Minnesota are more likely to consider moving to the state, which the industry dubs the “halo effect.”
“Tourism really acts as the front door to economic development,” Bennett McGinty said.
A new tourism campaign will also launch in March with digital, TV and radio ads featuring influencers — from food to fishing enthusiasts — experiencing Minnesota for the first time in documentary-style ads targeting communities from Chicago and Kansas City to Denver and St. Louis.
“We’re going to be kind of blasting the whole country with messages about Minnesota,” Bennett McGinty said.
A year-round destination
Bennett McGinty has led Explore Minnesota since 2021 after heading up the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild. She’s aiming to change national perceptions about Minnesota and bolster travel in every season.
“The No. 1 goal and vision is to become a top 10 destination for year-round travel,” she said.
Last year’s legislation bumped up Explore Minnesota’s annual budget by nearly $4 million to $18.3 million, moving it up from ranking toward the end in a list of states’ tourism budgets to the middle of the pack, Bennett McGinty said.
“We had a lot of catching up to do,” she added.
The new dollars will help Explore Minnesota resume international marketing after pausing it during the pandemic, as well as rebuild its staffing closer to pre-pandemic levels of about 50 employees. That means hiring a first-ever tribal liaison to boost tourism to tribal nations and a new deputy director of outdoor recreation to team up with other agencies to coordinate promoting outdoor recreation in Minnesota.
“We’re really stepping into some new territory and hoping that these programs are things that are much more future-focused and support kind of a new wave of both tourism and economic development in the state,” Bennett McGinty said.
Explore Minnesota also got one-time funding of $5.5 million in 2024 and again in 2025 to support new initiatives, including hosting the U.S. Gymnastic Trials this summer, one of the most anticipated events ahead of the Summer Olympics in Paris. Another $2.2 million will go to the state’s 11 tribal nations in first-ever tribal grants. The rest of the money will go to local tourism organizations, new marketing efforts to underrepresented communities and multicultural festivals.
In southern Minnesota, Experience Rochester received a $40,000 reimbursement, which will go toward boosting marketing, registering for trade shows and other measures. It will help the organization rebuild as tourism rebounds post-pandemic, spokesman Bill Von Bank said.
“Tourism is the purest form of economic development,” he said, adding that the increase in lodging taxes show that the number of visitors to Rochester has increased this year, returning to pre-pandemic levels.
In Duluth, tourism has bounced back, but not fully to pre-pandemic numbers, said Daniele Villa at Visit Duluth. Explore Minnesota’s $15,000 grant helped the organization boost marketing and print visitor guides. Like Explore Minnesota, Visit Duluth is trying to draw more year-round travel through conventions and business trips to bring more visitors in winter.
“We need to keep pushing the destination,” Villa said.
Tourism slowly recovers from pandemic
Minnesota’s leisure and hospitality sector makes up the fourth largest industry in the state, with about 250,000 employees staffing everything from lakeside resorts and downtown hotels to restaurants, museums and theaters.
The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the sector, which lost $14 billion and saw its workforce shrink by 23,000 workers compared to 2019. That’s resulted in widespread staffing shortages.
But there are some signs of a recovery. Average monthly hotel occupancy rates bounced back to 55% in 2022, up from 36% in 2020, though still below 2019′s rate and still lagging behind U.S. and other metro areas’ hotel indicators. The number of passengers traveling through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport increased to 31 million in 2022, up from less than 15 million in 2020 but still below the nearly 40 million travelers at MSP in 2019.
In 2022, the state recorded 77 million visitors — finally rebounding to the same number as 2019. Those visitors generated more than $13 billion in economic impact.
It’s too early to release 2023 data, but an Explore Minnesota survey last summer found that most tourism and hospitality businesses reported being financially stable or growing.
“If you look at different parts of the state, tourism is back, it’s booming … and then other parts are still coming back,” Bennett McGinty said. “I think we’re going to see those numbers bounce back. We’re working really hard to get there.”
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.