Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

December 30, 2016

Tourism 'listening tours' yield marketing aid for towns

The state Office of Culture and Tourism will be helping several towns set up webpages on the ctvisit.com site in early 2017 to help market local attractions in the absence of regional tourism district funding.

Tim Sullivan, deputy commission of the state’s Department of Community and Economic Development, said Friday about nine towns asked Connecticut tourism officials to help them set up webpages on the state’s http://ctvisit.com website in the coming year, following listening tours conducted in November and December.

“There’s a lot of interest in cooperative marketing opportunities and requests for additional visibility on website, in ads and social media,” said Sullivan. “Eight or nine [town officials] said they wanted to sign up. I think that number will grow a lot next year.”

Most of the towns expressing interest are in the Northeastern part of the state, he said.

The state’s three regional tourism districts lost $1 million in funding over the summer, so the listening tour was held at 10 different locations throughout the state to gather feedback from stakeholders, which include owners of attractions and leaders of chambers of commerce and come councils of government, Sullivan said,

There’s been a demand for state office of tourism to step in and fill gaps, he added.

Rosemary Bove, a tourism program coordinator, has been assigned new responsibilities within the office of tourism, which Sullivan oversees, to focus on helping market the state without the usual funding allocation.

On the listening tour, “we wanted to hear what our partners need hotels restaurants attractions chambers of commerce and other private groups. It’s going to take a team effort to do this right,” Sullivan said.

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF