I think that tourism and driving tour maps are great tools for small town tourism. I picked up these two locally: the Great Plains Trail of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Agritourism Map. The hope is that with a map full of suggestions, visitors are more likely to string together several destinations. I don’t know if…
1. The best promotion you can get is the personal recommendation of someone who has been to your town or attraction. 2. And yet… locals will live here for years, and never set foot in some of the most amazing attractions and events you have to offer. But once they do, they are some of…
When I checked into the Crystal Mountain Resort in Michigan, the desk staff person handed me a paper copy of the events and activities calendar for the week. That’s a tourism idea that has been around forever, and we can make something more of it. First, let’s adapt it for a small town. Don’t think only…
People trust other people, much more than they trust you. That means your potential customers trust the semi-anonymous reviews written on online review sites more than all that great text on your own website. Do you regularly monitor what is said about you on TripAdvisor, VirtualTourist or Igougo? How about mainstream booking sites like Hotels.com,…
New ideas are changing rural tourism. Now it is possible to reach more people, more places than you could ever have afforded to before. But it’s also more complex, with more complicated choices, and a faster pace of change. Recognizing that tourism is a huge segment of rural small business, we want to put a…
With the publication of our ebooks, Sheila Scarborough and I are starting something new. We’re collaborating to help you learn much more than you can from just reading this site. Starting now, Sheila will be focusing on helping you with Tourism 2.0. Sheila is a traveler and travel writer, who has spent years developing her…
Social media sounds like the solution to all our small town tourism problems. But who is going to put together all the 1,000 parts and make it make sense? That would be Sheila Scarborough. She’s spent hours, years really, getting good with web 2.0, social media, marketing, and how this all comes together as tourism…
Marci Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, has lots of ideas of how to solve the volunteer shortage. She’s looking at all new ways to involve and engage people in small towns, with the WeKan volunteer program! Apologies for the dark video. It’s really dark in that barn! Marci also has a…
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