On May 24 the Department of Tourism said the Chinese “Tourism Media Group” recently named South Dakota the “Most Promising Destination” in the United States. The award appears to be a product of hiring East West Marketing Corp China of Beijing for $30,000 to spend this fiscal year pump press releases into Chinese media, pitch South Dakota to Chinese travel agencies, and arrange two “familiarization tours,” one for media/bloggers and one for a trade group. The contract calls for EWM to alchemize its $30K into $5 million per year of media value.
An EWM promotional video assures us that the “National Tourism Award Ceremony” at which this designation was granted is “the largest and most influential awards event in China’s travel industry.” However, when I go Googling around for past recipients of this esteemed honor, I find zilch.
EMW’s video includes the “South Dakota” tourism logo on the client list and shows some Chinese visitors enjoying South Dakota wine and potato chips in some loggy lodge with a nice South Dakota gal in a Sioux Falls sweatshirt:
About EAST WEST Marketing from Eest West Marketing on Vimeo.
EWM also has contracts with Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Louisiana. The company gives advice like warning clients not to torque off Chinese authorities with statements that undermine China’s territorial claims:
SD Tourism does offer a website for Chinese readers that appears to predate their work with East West Media:
SD Tourism offers separate tourism pages for visitors from Japan, Italy, Germany, France, and Benelux, but the department wimps out and does not translating for them. Only the Chinese get online material direct from South Dakota in their native tongue.
SD Tourism’s Chinese website includes a link to what appears to be a Chinese blogger who visited South Dakota from July into at least October 2010. At the beginning of that visit, on July 6, she says she met with “the Minister of Tourism and Economic Development of the State Government,” who at that time was Richard Benda:
On July 8, she received a briefing on South Dakota’s EB-5 program:
2010 Nian 7 Yue 6 Ri Tuesday
…In the evening, I was invited to dinner with the Minister of Tourism and Economic Development of the State Government. When we entered the lobby of the restaurant, I was shocked by the beautiful scenery of the undulating golf course outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Nobody had no car, and some of them were beautiful natural scenery. They were worth millions of dollars in New York and California. Visible landscape. Of course, the high-end restaurants and the elaborate recipes make me full of praise. I did not expect to leave me such a different level of impression in this little-known state. The most beautiful nature, the fewest people, the most beautiful recipes, and the most gracious people….
…2010 Nian 7 Yue 8 Ri Thursday
In the afternoon, Maureen ’s [likely Droz] team opened a short meeting. Find the direction of the Chinese website. At the same time , a preliminary overview of the EB-5 project held by another minister was carried out. All the slides made in China have been seen. Find out where they are doing. The EB-5 project in Asia, especially China, is now doing unprecedentedly hot. The EB-5 , the regional center of South Dakota, is the only investment project in the United States that has the state government to participate in, and this is largely a guarantee for investment by investors. Personally, I think that investing 500,000 US immigrants in the United States is indeed a very good opportunity for investors with a certain amount of funds in China [translation by Google; link added by me; Chinese blogger “shonnadu,” “My Journey in South Dakota,” Chinese blog post, 2010.07.21].
That summer 2010 visitor did not mention visiting any of the EB-5-funded dairies or the construction site of Northern Beef Packers in Aberdeen, but she did tour the state, working with filmmaker Andrew (Kightlinger, I’m guessing) and visiting the Sturgis Rally, which she memorialized with pictures of ladies with taped nipples and the closing observation, “建议喜欢旅游的朋友一定来这里体验这种真正的美国的粗狂世界”—which Google translates as, “It is recommended that friends who like to travel must come here to experience this truly American crude world.”
EWM has apparently classed up the marketing synergy… but I’m surprised Department of Tourism hasn’t scrubbed that link to EB-5 material.
The state’s burning in the EB-5 scandal hasn’t scared the Department of Tourism away from crony capitalism. Tourism’s press release notes that their efforts to daw Chinese tourists include “a partnership with DiDi Rental Car, a ride-sharing company similar to Uber and Lyft, that targets tourists who have an interest in road trip vacations.” Last November our tourism department apparently partnered with Colorado’s tourism department and the Chinese car rental company to cart five “Chinese Social Media Influencers” around our portion of the Wild West. Hey, South Dakota car rental companies and Lyft and Uber drivers! How do you feel about state government picking a Chinese company as their preferred vendor for promoting tourism in the state?
The Chinese got robbed of more money in the EB-5 scandal than anyone else. Daugaard took a trip to China to do business and we heard zilch from that little trip because it apparently accomplished zilch. Spending money on their rental car company may have been a beginning to get them to ‘trust’ us again. Selling the packing plant building to another investor who did not even have to pay enough in cash to cover local subcontractors even proved that local South Dakotans can not even trust doing business with their own state.
Huge mistakes swept under the rug will cause long term effects. Something to remember for next time. If South Dakota is to have a real business favorable impact, we will have to learn how to do business first, rather than just talk about it.
The EB-5 , the regional center of South Dakota, is the only investment project in the United States that has the state government to participate in, and this is largely a guarantee for investment by investors.
These investments were made with the knowledge they were “at risk” and no guarantees of any kind were to be considered.
Is it possible Joop, Benda, Rounds, etc. pulled the wool over investor’s eyes with vague promises of guarantees?
Will Trump’s trade war with China have any impact on South Dakota tourism?
Interesting question about trade war and tourism, Roger C. The tourism industry is nervous, although the impacts seem indirect. I wouldn’t think tariffs on specific goods like steel and soybeans would affect where people vacation. But if the trade war causes the Chinese economy to slump, then fewer Chinese will be taking expensive trips. Plus, Trump’s rhetoric has been driving tourists to other countries.
You mean we have a separate tourism page for the Benelux countries and the Joopster didn’t narrate it in Dutch? It’s the least he could do.
Oh, Cinese tourism of South Dakota is less than one tenth of one tech of a percent. “Nervous” That is silly.
OS apparently finds the concerns of the tourism industry silly, even though they can point to concrete numbers showing a downturn in visits to the U.S. Click those bold blue words, OS. They’re called hyperlinks. They provide information.
Ror, I think Joop did his native-language promos for South Dakota on EB-5:
More Dutch articles in this USCIS packet on South Dakota’s initial request to participate in EB-5, including letters supporting Bollen’s plan from Governor Mike Rounds, Senator Tom Daschle, Senator Tim Johnson, and Representative Bill Janklow.
Also included in the USCIS packet is a letter of support from Mitch Davis of Davisco, the original builders and operators of the Lake Norden cheese plant, now operated by Agropur. Mitakuye oyasin.
Also writing letters of support in 2003: Mark Leddy of Valley Queen Cheese in Milbank, Steven Krikava of Land O’Lakes, the McCook County Commission, the Moody County Commission (signed by chairman Bill Nibbelink), and Secretary of Agriculture Larry Gabriel.
Reminds me of how Ivanka suddenly got Chinese patents after daddy saved that Cinese company. Corruption = GOP = corruption. One and the same on any level.
This pizza cheese b.s. is a waste of decent milk. Should of had a Chobani yogurt plant built here, that way our precious locals could be enticed to feed their kids some decent proteins for their growing brains.
We have a couple billion pounds of cheese that just rots away with more added each day. Our legislators want more CAFO’s to produce more milk that will have to be used to produce more cheese that we can then stick in a borehole.
“The United States is currently in the midst of an epic cheese glut — with 1.2 billion pounds of cheese sitting in cold storage. If we wanted to patriotically eat through that surplus, every man, woman, and child would have to grab an extra 3 pounds of cheddar, Swiss, or provolone and start gnawing. (That’s over and above the 36 pounds of cheese per year the average American already eats.)” https://www.vox.com/2016/10/13/13268980/cheese-glut-united-states
The article goes on to say who is at fault, of course we blame China. But really, why don’t we have the guts to stop it all? NOem had the chance to with the Farm Bills as have others, but they don’t have the guts to tell the truth.
“To understand the cheese glut, we have to go back two years. In 2014, China was growing rapidly, its middle class had more cash to toss around, and people started buying more and more milk (particularly powdered milk) from the United States. Dairy profits here soared, and producers decided to expand, buying more cows and churning out more milk to meet what they hoped was skyrocketing demand.
This boom in milk production has been aided by relentless consolidation in the dairy industry. Back in 1987, the median dairy farm had 80 cows or fewer; today, it’s about 900. Economies of scale have driven costs down and bolstered output. On top of that, the average cow produces more milk than ever before, thanks in part to better breeding.”
Now, we want more immigrants to tend the cows, but we don’t want immigrants to come here…so now what? Mexico does not want the cheese now either. Yikes!
Milk is cheap. Cheese has a glut. Why is butter 2-3 dollars higher than historic high prices?
Butter has to be at this price to keep up the ruse of shortage. All smoke and mirrors that seems to be working. Butter makes you chubby though, so there is that.
“The EB-5 , the regional center of South Dakota, is the only investment project in the United States that has the state government to participate in, and this is largely a guarantee for investment by investors. ”
Intern shonnadu with rounds photo and the above active participation of SD GOP’s administration of SD DCI, USCIS, FBI, USA Brendan Johnson, Jackley, Daugaard and GOAC all ignored while having full knowledge and/or access to facts in which Joop and his “lawyers” (public and private) secreted records, office space, and travel extravaganzas.
Hard to ignore.
Mr. jerry, I am willing to do my part and yours to solve the cheese glut.
Jerry, cheese makes you chubby too, especially in the quantities many people eat. Yellow, gooey cheese on everything.
There are really good cheeses that are not soft yellow and they sell for more $. Why don’t some these dairies produce better cheeses, yogurt, butter or other milk products?
Butter me some yellow cheese and pass me some whole milk to wash it down, we’ve got a glut to resolve.
I love the cheese, that is for sure. What I am seeing though is the abuse of the land and of the producers by special interests, shocking right? The facts are that our smaller family dairy farms were viable when milk prices were stable without the glut. Now we just keep adding and adding with a South Dakota legislature that is engineering a tax fraud on all of us, dairy farmers included, with these ridiculous CAFO’s that Goofy Mickelson proclaims as good for his pocketbook.
“Sometimes you have to destroy the village to save it” as what is now going on in New Zealand where they are culling 150,000 head of dairy cows. This is more of disease protection than production protection, but really fall under the same line in many ways. https://www.news.com.au/world/new-zealand-to-kill-150000-cows-to-end-bacterial-disease-as-fears-raised-about-farmer-welfare/news-story/a1f9db1c3e82f0ea080d87b870b4f30d
New Zealand produces milk for China, just like South Dakota does. We all get stuck with the problems of doing that, so why not adjust our Farm Bills to reflect the market neeand I ds rather than special interest needs? NOem should be held accountable for her complete lack of knowledge on anything to do with farming and the production lines. Thankfully we will have Tim Bjorkman in Washington to bring some intelligence to the wave.
Milk are not friends as I seem to have genetics that disapprove of the lactose, but cheese is a different deal. Small producers of cheese have the grueling regulations that make production marginal at best. If you want good cheese products and great yogurt, and incredible butter, you might want to make a trip across the pond. There you will find small family run operations that have been producing product for generations. There they have quota’s that are followed by the country’s involved with the EU on milk and dairy production. These milk products are also on the shelves and not refrigerated. Big deal in how the product is handled and cheaper as well as you also factor in the energy consumed to keep our milk cold.