Mayor Michelle Wu announced the next phase in the All Inclusive Boston campaign promoting small businesses and encouraging tourists to visit the city on Monday morning.
"This campaign is an invitation to explore everything our city has to offer," she said, including its restaurants, parks, different flavors and diverse communities. "We are so excited to be welcoming people from every corner of our state and across the country and the world."
"We are trying to do everything possible to get folks back into our city," Wu added.
She was joined for the announcement by Segun Idowu, chief of economic opportunity and inclusion; Colette Phillips, CEO of Colette Phillips Communications Inc.; Daren Bascome, CEO of Proverb Agency; Martha Sheridan, CEO of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau; and Maggie Baxter, vice president of programming at NBC10 Boston, NECN, Telemundo Boston and NBC Sports Boston.
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The $2.5 million tourism campaign launched last summer to help drive traffic to local businesses and revive the pandemic-plagued economy.
"On the national stage, people are now talking about Boston," Sheridan said. "It has made a true difference."
Phase two of the campaign involves the investment of an additional $1.5 million to help get the message out about Boston around the country and across the globe.
The second phase of the campaign, called Boston Accents, attempts to put a fresh spin on Boston's often poorly imitated accent, looking to turn it into an asset by leveraging the city's history as the birthplace of America mixed with its culturally and linguistically diverse population.
The campaign is anchored by a video showcasing Boston’s diversity. It highlights Boston’s multicultural, local economy and promotes the city as a welcoming and diverse destination with rich cultural enclaves and many untold stories.
The goal, Phillips said, is to "change the narrative about Boston," but more importantly, to reinvigorate the economy by driving visitors and residents alike to visit some of the traditionally undervisited small businesses in neighborhoods like Roxbury, Chinatown, Dorchester, the South End, and more.
Everyone knows Fenway Park and Faneuil Hall, she said, but there is much more to Boston than that.
"What we're sharing here is a portrait of Boston and her people," Bascome said. "Many times people and places that are sometimes left out of the frame."
"The perceptions we're trying to overcome and reintroduce are going to take some time, but ultimately what we think we'll end up with is a city that is much more competitive as a tourist destination and ultimately will help to support a much more vibrant economy," he added.
Wu said the success of the campaign will hinge on three factors.
"One, a year from now, that our small businesses and our tourism and hospitality industry and all the jobs that represents, we really feel like we're on solid footing, growing and supported," she said. "Second is to really ensure that people's idea and imagining of Boston matches with the reality of our neighborhoods and our communities today. And third is to ensure that even within our city, there's something special for everyone to come and experience in person, even if it's just one neighborhood over from where you are... There is something for everyone in our city and we want all of our neighborhoods and communities to not only be welcoming but connected to each other as well."
