Indianapolis angling for artsier reputation
Task force plans to put city on cultural map

By Saideh Barlow
IBJ Reporter

Indianapolis will be one of the top cultural tourism destinations in the nation within a decade—that’s a scenario a trio of Indianapolis organizations have been toiling to create during the past five years.

And one that might have a better chance of coming to fruition after Mayor Bart Peterson pledged his support in his Feb. 22 State of the City Address at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

The Indianapolis Arts Council, Indianapolis Downtown Inc. and the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association have been collaborating for five years to extend the city’s growing cultural reputation into neighboring states and beyond.

Their efforts include hiring a tourism marketing specialist to research Indianapolis’ strengths and weaknesses in cultural tourism and holding a summit last June to gauge local residents’ willingness to join the project.

Now, with the backing of the mayor’s office, a newly formed task force is penning a 10-year strategic plan that will act as the backbone for Indianapolis’ cultural tourism goal.

Peterson’s office has also hired the same marketing specialist to lead the task force because of her familiarity with the city’s pluses and minuses.

Louise Stevens, president and executive consultant with Bozeman, Mont.-based ArtsMarket Inc., was employed by the Arts Council in 1999 to establish early research on how tourists viewed the Hoosier city.

Stevens is incorporating the results of her studies and more recent community brainstorming sessions to help draft the strategic plan, which is expected to be ready by summer.

Stevens said Indianapolis had to first overcome a major hurdle—building a cultural and arts reputation to rival the successful image the city has as an amateur sports and racing capital.

“Indianapolis is not the place people think of when they want to drive up for the weekend to soak up museums and concerts—and we need to create that image,” Stevens said.

“We did focus groups and cultural research in Fort Wayne, Louisville, southern Chicago suburbs and St. Louis about a year ago, and in all cases, there wasn’t a well-formed image of Indy as a cultural destination—just spotty pieces of knowledge and awareness of quality,” she added.

But Indianapolis has a head start with its ambitious plan, Stevens explained, because “it has the inventory, the assets. And it’s a matter of packaging them and maximizing how they work together.”

ArtsMarket’s research also revealed that Indianapolis residents have a crucial role to play in the cultural tourism initiative. Studies show that more than half of all visitors to Indianapolis stay with friends and family, turning host families into potential tourist guides.

Indianapolis Arts Council Executive Director Ramona Baker is familiar with the concept.

“When I have friends stay at my house, they get up in the morning and the first thing they ask is, ‘Where do you think we should go?’” Baker said. “So it’s people who live here that can be the biggest promoters of arts.”

Baker said the mayor’s involvement is a much-needed turbo boost for a project five years in the making. “It’s wonderful that the mayor supports it, in particular because we feel cultural tourism is a community-wide issue and we need the community to be involved,” she said.

The mayor made his personal interest in the arts a campaign platform in 1999. Now he expects to deliver some results through the 10-year strategic plan.

“I have always had a spectator’s interest in the arts, but I became convinced during the campaign that arts were an opportunity to take the city to the next level,” Peterson said. “I am convinced in the new economy that all types of businesses and leaders tend to be interested in quality-of-life issues, such as what are the cultural opportunities of Indianapolis and how can we advance our economic development goals by advancing arts?”

Peterson said funding for the plan is not final but efforts would include approaching Lilly Endowment. He also expects the city’s Capital Improvement Board to be a major supporter.

Meanwhile, a proposed budget is in the works, according to Keira Amstutz, deputy mayor of Public Affairs, though just how much it will take to pull off the plan is not known, she said.

“We hope to find partners in the community to support the plan’s strategies, but our goal is not to take money that most of our arts and cultural organizations rely on to support their own existence,” Amstutz said.

Amstutz said the plan would not be the final product, rather, the start of a shift in Indianapolis’ cultural identity.

“It will be a working and evolving document,” she said. “Anyone used to reading corporate strategic plans will know it will involve tactics, timelines, people and organizations identified to help implement goals.”

Key issues being addressed in the plan include improvements to city infrastructure; comprehensive marketing and advertising; city-wide training in industries such as hospitality and transportation; collaboration between theaters, performing arts organizations and other stakeholders; and community awareness and education.

Indianapolis Downtown Inc.’s vice president of marketing and communications, Julia Watson, said the short-term marketing goal is to attract tourists from Midwest neighbors, while concentrating on visitors from other parts of the country later.

Watson is convinced Indianapolis has every chance of joining the A-list of cultural big names such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston.

“Indianapolis will be on that map in 10 years,” she said. “Right now, we are excited abut the progression because we’ve broadened the buy-in by getting the community involved—we’ve really gotten our first taste of how far we can go with community interest,” she said.

Watson said the immediate challenge is Indianapolis’ ability to reach targeted Midwest audiences with some frequency. “Advertising and sales are the fundamental tenants to being successful. We are biting off a big part of the Midwest and we will need a strong campaign,” she said.