New Mexico: Close To Arizona

Working on the image-thang again. And New Mexico does have its image issues. For example, NM has some pretty crappy beaches, but it's mostly because of the absence of water than inferior sand. My idea would be to emphasize "Breaking Bad", but would the tourism folks want to make a direct link to drug use? Meth, for what ails you....

Oh well, it's just as well to remain obscure:

SANTA FE, N.M.—New Mexico calls itself the Land of Enchantment. But the spell isn't working all that well.

Overnight tourist trips in New Mexico have dropped by nearly 10% in the past three years, and spending on everything from souvenir magnets to turquoise jewelry fell by hundreds of millions of dollars.

When state tourism officials convened focus groups in Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles to ask prospective travelers about their perceptions of New Mexico, the same depressing descriptions kept cropping up: "Arid." "Barren." "Dull."

Also: "Close to Arizona."

So state officials are launching a $2.5 million effort to rebrand New Mexico as a place of charm and character, adventure, excitement—and really good green chili cheeseburgers. As a model, the state is looking north to Colorado, which routinely gets praised in focus groups as "majestic," "glorious" and "heavenly."

...New Mexico, too, has had some marketing misfires. One recent come-hither campaign played off conspiracy theories about UFO landings in Roswell, N.M., and featured bug-eyed green aliens. The state's Rose Parade float in 2008 featured the creatures.

"I don't know that it resonated," said Veronica Valencia, who recently joined the Tourism Department as marketing director.

...Indeed, the focus group members seemed clueless about New Mexico, which is celebrating its centennial. It entered the union as the 47th state on Jan. 6, 1912. Yet several focus group members wondered aloud whether they needed passports to visit. Others, apparently confusing Albuquerque with Acapulco, said they had heard good things about the landlocked state's beaches.

Even some tourists who ventured into New Mexico over the holidays had low expectations. Kamran Mogharreban, who is 57, came from southern Illinois to visit his brother—and was surprised to find himself enjoying touring museums in Albuquerque, shopping in Santa Fe and taking the commuter rail that zips between the two cities. It wasn't at all what he had expected of New Mexico. "I thought it would be more backward," Mr. Mogharreban said.

...At the moment, fully a third of overnight visitors to New Mexico are just passing through, state officials said. That pains Lynnae Molidor, who owns a clothing boutique in the historic Santa Fe Plaza. "People think New Mexico is all hoity-toity, high-end—or, for the real out-there people, there's Roswell" and flying saucers, Ms. Molidor said. "They don't think there's an in-between."