Despite all the negatives we hear about economic opportunities in Michigan there are still areas of growth and Port Sanilac is already a part of one of those industries. Tourism.
Port Sanilac is located conveniently close to the greater Detroit area, yet is still far enough away to be an entirely new world for city dwellers and suburbanites. Port Sanilac is an undiscovered treasure.
Now we pose the questions: How do we let people know about this treasure? and How do we
bring them, and their tourism dollars, here? The DDA was presented with a unique opportunity to address these challenges just one year ago. That's when the Discover the Blue tourism campaign started for Port Sanilac and eight other lakeshore communities
One year ago, Marci Fogel of the Blue Water Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), announced that the CVB was developing a dynamic new advertising tool for the Thumb and wanted to include us. This advertising project was to be known as Discover the Blue, with the concept to join the lakeside communities from Algonac to Port Austin into a coalition for advertising the entire area as the Shores of Eastern Michigan. This would allow us, as a collaboration, to make a much bigger impact in tourism advertising. The DDA recognized the potential and dedicated $5,000 to include Port Sanilac.
The $5,000 spent for this campaign was initially to provide:
- an additional welcome guide for the area,
- a large scale advertisement within AT&T phone books throughout 14 Michigan counties,
- an advertisement in Midwest Living magazine, and
- presence on the Discover the Blue website (www.bluewater.org).
Very quickly the campaign grew to include much more!
The Discover the Blue/Shores of Eastern Michigan campaign formed a partnership with the Pure Michigan campaign (www.michigan.org) which made the Blue Water Area a Featured Destination on the Pure Michigan website and a included the area in a Tim Allen Pure Michigan radio ad!
The Pure Michigan campaign has been awarded as the number one tourism campaign in the country! Through our affiliation with Pure Michigan, the hits on the Discover the Blue website expanded from 11,546 in the summer of 2008 to 87,658 in the summer of 2009! That is over 87,000 times that people were exposed to the name Port Sanilac and were able to easily access more information about us!
In conjunction with the hits to the website, over 4,000 visitor guides were sent directly to people who requested them on the website. Those are requests from people who are looking for a place to spend their vacation and are now being introduced to Port Sanilac and the beautiful Eastern shoreline!
In addition to the welcome guide mailings and the web exposure Discover the Blue was able to invest in a variety of other advertising opportunities.
- 40,000 Discover the Blue welcome guides were distributed throughout the states of Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana
- Advertisements were placed in numerous publications, including Michigan Living, Parade Magazine, Long Weekends, and many others. These publications had a circulation of over 3.4 million issues!
As you can see, the Discover the Blue/Shores of Eastern Michigan campaign has brought a lot of attention to our area! Although it is hard to measure the success of an advertising campaign in direct dollars, the DDA understands and appreciates the indirect dollars being spent in our community.
Downtown Development Authority
Although the This 'n' That has been open for business for many years during the summer months, it has been closed for the winter. This year that is changing. The owners, Ron and Carol Marlow, have gone into partnership with the owners of Old Fire House Gifts in Deckerville; and through that partnership the store will be open year 'round. 
The Boo Fest is back for another year with fun for the entire family. Saturday, October 17, from 10 am to 3 pm, the Sanilac County Historical Museum will be hosting the Boo Fest. 
how to help our downtown improve and grow.