City Council Votes to Bring Back Visit Duluth’s Power

DULUTH, Minn. — After losing its 85-year title as Duluth’s sole tourism marketing organization in 2022, Visit Duluth is gaining back some of its longtime power.

It’s set to eventually get back its original power in about two years. The city council has authorized a five-year agreement with Visit Duluth to handle advertising and publicity of the city at a cost of $650,000 for 2025, with 2 percent annual increases after that.

The agreement includes Visit Duluth’s oversight of Madden Media out of Arizona, which recently was awarded a two-year, $3.2 million deal to handle Duluth’s tourism marketing. Following that, Visit Duluth will have full control as a destination marketing organization, or D.M.O., handling all tourism marketing dollars from the city once again.

Visit Duluth lost its longtime contract with the city at the end of 2021 after then-mayor Emily Larson put out a “request for proposals,” and chose a marketing agency out of the Twin Cities through a scoring system.

Newly elected Mayor Roger Reinert followed Larson’s lead on a similar R.F.P.  He said there wasn’t enough time to build Visit Duluth back up to its original operations before taking office this past January, with the firm out of the Twin Cities ending its tourism contract at the end of last year.