Fox is telling the Massachusetts story, for everyone – The Boston Globe

Now, Fox wants all the state’s branding and marketing to signal that Massachusetts is welcoming to everyone.

“My goal is to make sure everything we do is inclusive,” said Fox, who ran Destination Salem before joining the Healey administration. “That campaign is a catalyst for revisioning all of our marketing strategy going forward. It’s: How can everything we do clearly communicate that Massachusetts is ‘for us all’?”

Does that mean Massachusetts has a new marketing slogan? Fox didn’t want to go that far, but did say “there’s a great opportunity to look at what a slogan would be.”

The MOTT ad budget is relatively small. The Legislature sets aside $10 million for tourism each year: $6 million for regional tourism bureaus and $4 million for MOTT. The agency has nine staffers, including the three-person Massachusetts Film Office.

MOTT is also in the midst of a separate $2.5 million campaign, dubbed “Take a Moment,” that launched in the spring under Fox’s predecessor, Keiko Orrall. That campaign, which highlights scenic attractions, involves spots on TV, radio, social media, and billboards and will run through September.

Fox said she’s excited to take on what she calls the “biggest tourism job in the state,” fostering a sector that employs more than 130,000 people here.

“Tourism is a really critical part of our economy,” Fox said. “It has a tremendous amount of potential for telling the Massachusetts story. There’s a lot of responsibility to do it correctly and authentically.”

Passing the baton at Mass. Municipal

Jill Hai knew she had a tough task ahead: Just as she started a one-year tenure as president of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, longtime executive director Geoff Beckwith announced he would retire. After more than three decades in that job, Beckwith and the MMA have become inseparable in many ways.

On Friday, Hai’s task was fulfilled. The MMA board approved an executive committee recommendation to name Adam Chapdelaine as Beckwith’s replacement. Chapdelaine, who takes over for Beckwith on Sept. 9, has spent the past year as deputy director of the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, which aims to make Boston more resilient to climate change. He’s perhaps best known, though, for his previous tenure in Arlington, first as deputy town manager and then serving as town manager for a decade until 2022.

Chapdelaine said he’s excited to work with cities and towns across the state as they strive to provide services for their residents while “meeting the myriad challenges of the 21st century.”

Hai had hired headhunting firm Mercer Group Associates to help, and assembled a nine-member search committee. Chapdelaine — himself a past president of the MMA — emerged as the best choice.

“He understands what it’s like in the trenches as well as in the policy world,” said Hai, a Lexington select board member. “It was such a unique combination of experience and vision.”

Shah wonders: Where would Wayfair grow now?

When Wayfair cofounders Niraj Shah and Steve Conine were starting their careers in 1995, the choice was simple. Boston? Or New York? The two Cornell grads had a strong preference for Boston.

Shah recounted his experience during a Massachusetts Competitive Partnership event last week, held to discuss making this state more friendly for tech startups. Shah, now Wayfair’s chief executive, recalled that he liked the wealth of innovation talent here and the density of venture capital firms. While those strengths still hold true, “Boston’s stature has definitely dropped on a relative basis to some other cities in the country [since 1995],” Shah said. “For the vitality of the economy, I just think there’s a lot we could do today that would . . . make it feel a lot more like 1995.”

He particularly cited the region’s high cost of living as a reason why it’s become tougher to attract talent here.

State economic development secretary Yvonne Hao then said she gets it. As Governor Maura Healey’s point person for economic competitiveness, Hao said she has become “relentlessly paranoid” about rival states poaching our best and brightest people and companies, particularly amid the rise of remote work and residents moving to lower-cost places to live.

On the other hand, Hao remains optimistic the pendulum might swing back. She said the Somerville startup where she worked, PillPack, would not have survived until it was acquired by Amazon if not for all the in-office collaboration. “A lot of business is a ‘full contact sport,’” Hao added. “I think over time, we’ll see some of that shift back again.”

Travel industry turns its eyes to Washington

Now that we’re all free to move about the cabin again, what will the biggest stumbling blocks be for the travel industry going forward?

That was one of the major recurring themes at the U.S. Travel Association’s Summer Summit, held last week at the Omni Hotel in the Seaport. Attendees came from across the country, representing various corners of the travel and tourism sector. Local panelists included Meet Boston chief executive Martha Sheridan, Google executive Pratip Banerji, and Harvard Business School professor Karim Lakhani. NBC10 Boston′s Glenn Jones emceed.

Geoff Freeman, the trade group’s chief executive, said he’s particularly concerned that other countries seem far more ambitious than the US government in bolstering inbound international travel. Would-be travelers headed for the United States are often confronted with super-long wait times for visas, and super-long lines at customs gates. And the Federal Aviation Administration, Freeman said, has 1,200 fewer air traffic controllers today than it did a decade ago — a shortage that contributes to a wide range of flight delays and cancellations. Not helping matters: the federal government does not have one central agency to deal with travel issues.

“The threat to Boston is more Washington than Boston,” Freeman said in an interview. “The message from Washington is, ‘We don’t care about travel as much as you care about travel.’”

Andy Freed is out of the office. In the meantime…

It’s that time of year again. Time for Andy Freed to go on vacation. Or, maybe more accurately, time for Andy Freed to release his out-of-office “message.”

The tradition for the chief executive of Wakefield events and marketing firm Virtual Inc. started some two decades ago when he started writing wacky sign-offs to indicate he was away: a spoof of Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” poem when he took Patriots Day off in 2011, or a satirical vacation-themed song to the tune of “Jingle Bells” in December 2012.

The tradition eventually escalated into crazy vacation-themed videos with pop culture references, produced with the help of buddy Thomas Pimentel, owner of TNT Ltd. Productions. Think “Top Gun” or “Ted Lasso.” And don’t forget that 27-minute homage to “Game of Thrones.”

This year, Freed’s OOO message includes a link to a 4-plus minute pharmaceutical ad for a drug called “Vacation.” (The long list of side effects includes eating desserts for breakfast, participating in absurd water sports, and drinking Dr Pepper from novelty binoculars.)

“I always look for what’s out there and ubiquitous,” said Freed, while vacationing in Edgartown. “What’s more ubiquitous than pharmaceutical ads right now?”

Freed started these offbeat messages to make a point.

“It’s the notion that anything in life, anything in business, can be fun, even the most mundane task,” Freed said. But he conceded: “It’s completely spun out of control.”

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.