Use local PR, marketing folks for city tourism

To the editor:

Before hiring professional consultants on how to market Cape Girardeau, I believe the Convention and Visitors Bureau director could reach out to some of the professionals in public relations and marketing in town first as a preliminary step.

There are PR and marketing folks at the university. Some upper-class PR and marketing students could help with this venture by doing a lot of the leg work.

When I was in school, we had real clients. We had a promotion plan which addressed costs, publicity, surveys, how it was measured, target markets and the competition.

Local talent could be used only as a first step - then do the consultant thing.

VANCE S. PAWIELSKI

Cape Girardeau