JOPLIN, Mo. — A furor broke out on Facebook over the weekend after a Springfield television station reported that the Joplin Convention and Visitors Bureau had produced a map to help market the tornado zone to sightseers.

But the bureau’s director said Monday that his intent is only to help visitors who ask for directions to the zone.

Patrick Tuttle, director of the CVB, said the bureau is not planning a “tornado tourism” marketing program for Joplin. He said some of the information he discussed with a TV reporter was reported inaccurately.

The story reported that the bureau is distributing a map to direct visitors to the tornado zone and that it plans to start guided bus tours of the zone in the spring.

“The map was made in-house and was designed as an informational piece, not a sales piece,” Tuttle said.

Tuttle said the Welcome Center operated by the Missouri Division of Tourism on Interstate 44 was using a city map printed in the bureau’s glossy tourism brochures to show to motorists who asked for directions on how to get to the tornado zone. He said visitors also were asking at motels and restaurants how to get to the tornado zone or to certain landmarks, such as Joplin High School, Cunningham Park, St. John’s Regional Medical Center and the seven homes built by “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

He said that in response, he and his staff printed a map that was cheaper to produce than the glossy brochures so that Welcome Center workers or hotel staff members could provide a map to those who asked. It was meant to serve not only visitors but also volunteers coming to work in the zone, he said.

On the back side of the map, the bureau provided an outline of the main statistics about the EF-5 tornado on May 22 and its aftermath.



Manager’s message

That information, though, includes a message from Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr thanking visitors for being interested in Joplin’s experience, and inviting them to eat at a restaurant, go downtown and shop or stay a hotel.

His message reads: “These simple actions support jobs and provide stability for our residents and business owners.” It thanks visitors for taking time “to witness our living history” and commends the effort of volunteers who work to clean up and rebuild the tornado zone.

Rohr, in an email Monday regarding the issue of the fact sheet on the back of the map, said the information was placed there “based on people that were already visiting Joplin asking questions of waiters, waitresses and attendants about the tornado without them having the knowledge to respond in a knowledgeable fashion.”

He said the fact sheet was compiled from information gathered from various sources to provide information to those who were asking about the tornado.

Said Rohr: “In that manner, the message could be controlled, accurate and consistent. To my knowledge, there is no attempt to solicit sightseers to come to Joplin to view the tornado-damaged area. I have advocated for some time that we want to be defined by how we responded to circumstances that we were presented with and not the actual event of the tornado and the damage it caused.”

Tuttle said he is not planning guided tours. He said what he spoke about to the TV reporter is that charter bus groups that are traveling through have been asking for directions.

“We are not actively seeking tourists to come,” Tuttle said. “We’re saying, ‘Here is the safe route to drive through if they want to look at the zone.’”



‘Concepts and ideas’

Scott Brady, news director for KY3 in Springfield, said Monday in a telephone interview that the reporter who did the story saw one of the maps while in Joplin on another story Thursday. He said the reporter and Tuttle “did discuss all those concepts.”

He said the station will post a clarification of the details that Tuttle has questioned.

“But those ideas did not come from our reporter. The concepts and ideas did come from Patrick,” said Brady, though there are no approved plans for them at this point.

The tornado claimed 161 lives and destroyed or damaged more than 7,500 homes along a six-mile corridor inside Joplin’s city limits, and continued its destructive path for seven miles through Duquesne to Diamond.

The CVB’s page on Facebook lit up with comments Saturday and Sunday. The bureau did not post a response until 2:49 p.m. Monday.

One resident felt so strongly that he put up a separate Facebook page titled “Joplin Citizens Against Tornado Tours.”

Of his effort, Aaron DuRall said, “Obviously this is an emotional issue for a lot of people.”

Noting that the reactions may be “knee-jerk” if the bureau did not intend to use the disaster as a marketing tool, he said, “I still believe the maps are tacky” so soon after the disaster. “If more neighborhoods had come back, if St. John’s and Joplin High School were gone and they had a map to show where they were, it would be different. I could understand a map to say ‘look how far we’ve come.’

“I guess I could understand if it’s going to help people get to the tornado zone.”



New strategy

Tuttle recently hired a Kansas City advertising firm, Propaganda Communications, to devise a new marketing strategy for the bureau.

In seeking the City Council’s approval for the contract, Tuttle said it is time for the bureau to get rid of the cartoonish typeface and festival-type image used in the city’s tourism advertising for a new look. He recommended the firm because of its fresh ideas and because it has experience in what Tuttle described to the council as “disaster tourism.”

Kevin McInerney, vice president of sales for the marketing firm, said Monday that a new advertising campaign under development for Joplin would not focus on the tornado.

“Our marketing is geared toward attractions and events, sporting events, basic tourism,” McInerney said in a phone interview. His said his staff members were in Joplin during the Christmas season to photograph events, such as DickensFest and the Christmas Train. They are researching Joplin’s history and historic places to tie into the advertising, he said.

Tuttle said he dropped the use of the phrase “disaster tourism” after his presentation to the council.

DuRall said the story that sparked the controversy was believable “because it was so specific in the sense that these tours were going to start in spring and was going to help the tax revenue, and that is just unnecessary if you ask me.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone is actually going to truly know what Tuttle’s intent was or what KY3’s intent was at this point,” he said.





‘Not a plan’



AT 5:20 P.M. MONDAY, KY3 updated its Facebook page with this statement: “To be clear, the ideas of a (phone) app (for sightseers) and coordinating the routes of tour buses came from the CVB ... as an idea and not a plan.”