Tourism Tuesday: our series recognizing the importance of travel and tourism to small town business. The discussion in the comments section is always the best part.
What do gears do? They mesh together to transmit force. By meshing gears of different sizes, you can multiply the results. You can also bring too many gears together, and lock up the whole system.
Whether you are local business owner, a chamber of commerce person, or a convention and visitors bureau rep, you aren’t alone in promoting tourism in your area. Look around. Your city is probably also doing promotion. Your regional tourism group is out there. How about your state tourism association? How about all the other businesses in your area who depend on tourism?
The reason I want you to look around is to see where you could mesh your efforts with someone else’s.
I do some website work for my regional tourism association, Red Carpet Country. They offer a cool program to share the cost of promoting your event or attraction, as long as you promote other events or attractions in the area at the same time.
Sponsorship may be the most familiar form of meshing efforts. I believe in the ability of your event to bring in customers, so I’ll pay to have my name associated with it.
Who can you cooperate with? Is there another tourism based business in the area that is a natural partner? Can you add a link to the local restaurants from your bed and breakfast website? Could you create a night-out package with the local theater, a restaurant, and a dance?
Picture all the players in local tourism as gears, meshing together. How could you draw in new players, or connect people and businesses in new ways?
In the comments, I’d love to hear about your own local efforts at meshing. What has worked, and what hasn’t?
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Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
One of our readers emailed me to point out that not everyone has a friendly environment, conducive to meshing efforts. I can only say that it is true that not every tactic is for everyone. At the same time, keep a sharp eye out for other small business folks who feel the same as you, maybe those who are new to the area. They may be just as eager to cooperate as you are. Best of luck to everyone in such a tough situation!