How many would go to a horse race and bet on a three legged horse? Not too many and for good reason. Unless every horse in the race has three or less legs, all else being equal, a horse with four legs will have a better chance of winning than one with three and the horse with four healthy legs has a better chance of winning than one with a bad leg.
In the “Destination Derby,” an annual reoccurring horse race, where the prize is millions of first time and repeat visitors, the horse “Branson” has four legs to help it win the race. Those four legs are, entertainment, shopping, outdoors, and Silver Dollar City. In terms of the reasons why major segments of people come to Branson, there are those who come for entertainment, those who come to shop, those who come for outdoor activities, those who come to go to Silver Dollar City and the majority who come because of a combination of one or more of these things.
Now there will be those who might ask, “Why is Silver Dollar City a separate leg, isn’t it just another attraction that provides entertainment to Branson’s visitors? Yeah sure, and Mount Rushmore is just another mountain located near Custer, South Dakota.
Silver Dollar City is the single entity in the Branson area providing a “stand alone reason” for a major segment of potential Branson visitors to decide to visit Branson. What other single entity, retail store, shopping center, show, or attraction brings as many people to Branson as Silver Dollar City and has done it for as long?
The horse “Branson” not only has four legs as it enters the gate for this season’s Destination Derby but those four legs are in excellent condition. Branson’s already strong entertainment leg is strengthened by the addition of the new Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Theater Complex, the return of “The Promise,” the steady stream of name guest talent that theatres such as the Grand Palace, Welk Resort Theatre, Branson Variety Theater, Tri-Lakes Center bring in, the addition of the “Great Exposition” at Silver Dollar City, the Titanic Museum, the brand new “Butterfly and Rainforest Attraction, etc.
The addition of Branson Landing will provide a shopping experience available nowhere else in southern Missouri. The entire experience that will be Branson Landing will strengthen not only the shopping leg of the horse Branson but its entertainment and outdoor legs as well.
A horse can have four great legs but without a healthy heart those legs aren’t going to take it very far. The heart of a destination race horse is its marketing and the blood that keeps it pumping is funding.
Wisely, in Nov. of 2005, voters in the Branson area voted for a marketing tax to help rehabilitate Branson’s ailing marketing heart and keep it healthy for years to come. Thanks to that vote and the coordinated efforts of the Branson Board of Aldermen, City Administrator Terry Dody, the members of the Branson Lakes Area Tourism Community Enhancement District, and the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce, as the horse Branson breaks from the gate in 2006, it’s heart is not only healthy but will continue to grow stronger with each beat as the race goes on through 2006 and into the future.
To an Ole Seagull, from a destination city point of view, the horse Branson has always had the legs of a champion. Now it has the functioning marketing heart of a champion and is being ridden by a jockey that will be able to maximize the potential of both to put Branson “in the money” for the 2006 season and beyond. “Now hold on there Seagull, are you saying that it’s the marketing heart and the jockey, not all the “new stuff” that will put Branson in the money?”
Exactly, Branson has new stuff every year, some of which lasts and some of which doesn’t. What has lasted and served Branson well is its historic entertainment foundation. From the very beginning Branson has had the “right stuff” and the innovators to provide its visitors with an evolving enjoyable experience that they return to again and again.
What it has not had up till now is the ability to effectively market what it had. It’s not the “new stuff” that is the key to Branson’s future prosperity, it’s remaining true to its values and family entertainment roots and their effective marketing that will preserve it and enable it to prosper and grow in 2006 and into the future, nothing more and nothing less.
