PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) – New Hampshire and Vermont tourism officials are betting a box of Lake Champlain chocolates and a 5 lb. lobster on which state is more attractive to tourists.

When the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce hired a consultant to help Vermont’s largest city come up with a new brand identity, a comment in the consultant’s report revived a long-standing rivalry between Vermont and New Hampshire.

Without Burlington, the consultant said, Vermont would be like New Hampshire, “a nice looking but rather drab state with little to do, no hub of civilization, just somewhere to pass through.”

Now, the chamber of commerce is challenging New Hampshire to a friendly wager over the attractiveness of each state. The Lake Champlain group and the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce are asking visitors to their Web sites to send comments about what they like about their favorite states.

“I think anybody who would make such a comment is obviously not well informed,” said Marge Hubbard, vice president of the greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce. “They obviously haven’t visited the Seacoast of New Hampshire.”

“We have so much history. We have an amazing amount of culture with theater and the live music venues,” she added.

Tim Shea, vice president of the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, said he just skimmed over the now-infamous line in the report when he first saw it.

“It’s certainly not an opinion that we share nor that the consultant shares,” he said. “We love the state of New Hampshire and I suspect that tourists do as well. That being said, our task is charged with promoting the Burlington area and that was really the intent of the study.”

After the story blew up in the media, Shea said his chamber reached out to the Portsmouth chamber because it represents a similarly sized city that also is a tourist destination.

“Building on the history of democracy in New England, we’ll take it to the people and let people in New Hampshire and Vermont weigh in,” he said.

—-

On the Net: http://www.portsmouthchamber.org

http://www.vermont.org