Digital Extra

Rhode Islanders are intimately familiar with the short-term effects of the last week's spill. They've seen the images of oil-slicked birds and the leaking barge. So, it seems, have many others.

With that in mind, Greg Farmer, U.S. under secretary of commerce for travel and tourism, toured Narragansett and South Kingstown yesterday, talking with business owners and state officials about strategy for rescuing the state's reputation.

David Preble, a charter boat owner and captain, told Farmer that instead of the usual rush of calls to book charters he's come to expect in January, the only calls he's received since the spill have been cancellations.

"All my advertising has gone to waste," Preble said. "I've lost somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 already."

Although the tourism industry's total losses are difficult to predict, anecdotal evidence suggests that many would-be visitors are looking in other directions.

One group that canceled last week said they probably will head for Cape Cod, Preble said.

Timothy J. Tyrrell, an economist at the University Rhode Island, estimates that unless something is done to improve the state's image, the tourist business faces a $30 million to $60 million drop in revenue this summer.

Farmer, who was Florida secretary of commerce when nine foreign tourists were killed and Hurricane Andrew ripped through the state, says the timing of an advertising campaign to combat the negative publicity is as critical as its message.

"People are making their summer plans now," he said. "The media have done a good job explaining the crisis. We want (the media) to be telling (tourists) the crisis will be solved by vacation time."

To that end, Farmer met with officials from the state Economic Development Corporation and representatives from the tourism and fishing industries to establish priorities and choose a plan of action.

While the plan focuses on tourism and marketing, it also calls for an additional $1 million in federal aid, on top of an earlier $600,000, to finance a revolving loan program providing low-interest loans to fishermen and others the spill left without work in the short term.

The plan also calls for $500,000 for an assessment of the spill's economic impact, a seafood marketing campaign and other planning-related activites and a $1 million tourism campaign to combat the negative images of Rhode Island beaches that ran for nights on the national news.

The additional federal money amounts to $2.5 million. Farmer could not say exactly where the money would come from or how much of it the state would actually get, but he promised he would have an answer for Rhode Island within the next week or 10 days.

"The secretary (Ron Brown) has put this on the fast track and named it priority one," he said.