Creating compelling reasons for people to visit your city is the quickest, most important thing you can do. The Hoople Group has assembled a list of ideas you can use to increase traffic and revenue for long-term growth and make people care about your city as much as you do.
1. Be honest – what is GREAT about your city? Do you have the best collection of barbecue restaurants anywhere? Six great golf courses within a 10-mile radius? The world’s largest collection of dollhouses? Every city and town in the world has something special that can be harnessed into a festival or destination.
2. Get the silent majority involved. Is your city run by the same old guard that has been making decisions for 50 years? While their input is important, it’s time to get the high-school students involved, the new folks in town and everyone in between. The more input, the more chance you’ll find exactly what you need to attract tourists.
3. Make it easy. If someone drove into your town today, would they know how to find restaurants, points of interest and lodging? You need to get this done first. Make it easy to enjoy a day in your town.
4. Gather all the creative people in one place and get things moving. You’ve got ad agencies, public relations firms and freelance designers that can put your city on the map. Getting them to work together is the fun part!
5. Oh, you don’t have a bunch of creative talent where you live? Create a contest to develop marketing material. You might discover some hidden talent lurking right under your nose. And these folks will be incredibly passionate to help, so respect their time and effort.
6. Focus, focus, focus. Once you’ve decided where to focus your energy, see what websites, magazines and resources are out there. There is no niche that doesn’t have its own websites and fans. Find them.
7. Use Facebook to set up a group for your new tourism effort. Not sure how to do it? Ask any 13-year old. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll start hearing from people who want more information.
8. Create small teams to move things ahead. Nothing is more disheartening than a great idea, followed by nine months of soul-crushing all night meetings that don’t lead to anything. We love quick, focused sessions where 90% of the work gets done. After everyone agrees on the basics, you let people do what they love and the results will be impressive.
9. Need some ideas to kick start the brainstorming? Think of food festivals, historical events that happened in and around your city, the ghosts that come out every Friday night…what might be old news to you is big news to potential tourists.
10. Draw a 300-mile circle with your city as the center. Now you’ve got your target audience. Get busy and get creative. Have fun creating something special for your city.
The Hoople Group (hooplegroup.com) loves to help cities and towns discover what is truly special and help turn these ideas into revenue-generating action. Using brainstorming sessions and a quick-response team of marketing experts, we can help energize your group and give you sustainable plans for your city or town. For more information, please contact Peter Kaufman at [email protected] or call (804) 447-4032.
Creating compelling reasons for people to visit your city is the quickest, most important thing you can do. The Hoople Group has assembled a list of ideas you can use to increase traffic and revenue for long-term growth and make people care about your city as much as you do.
1. Be honest – what is GREAT about your city? Do you have the best collection of barbecue restaurants anywhere? Six great golf courses within a 10-mile radius? The world’s largest collection of dollhouses? Every city and town in the world has something special that can be harnessed into a festival or destination.
2. Get the silent majority involved. Is your city run by the same old guard that has been making decisions for 50 years? While their input is important, it’s time to get the high-school students involved, the new folks in town and everyone in between. The more input, the more chance you’ll find exactly what you need to attract tourists.
3. Make it easy. If someone drove into your town today, would they know how to find restaurants, points of interest and lodging? You need to get this done first. Make it easy to enjoy a day in your town.
4. Gather all the creative people in one place and get things moving. You’ve got ad agencies, public relations firms and freelance designers that can put your city on the map. Getting them to work together is the fun part!
5. Oh, you don’t have a bunch of creative talent where you live? Create a contest to develop marketing material. You might discover some hidden talent lurking right under your nose. And these folks will be incredibly passionate to help, so respect their time and effort.
6. Focus, focus, focus. Once you’ve decided where to focus your energy, see what websites, magazines and resources are out there. There is no niche that doesn’t have its own websites and fans. Find them.
7. Use Facebook to set up a group for your new tourism effort. Not sure how to do it? Ask any 13-year old. You’ll be amazed how quickly you’ll start hearing from people who want more information.
8. Create small teams to move things ahead. Nothing is more disheartening than a great idea, followed by nine months of soul-crushing all night meetings that don’t lead to anything. We love quick, focused sessions where 90% of the work gets done. After everyone agrees on the basics, you let people do what they love and the results will be impressive.
9. Need some ideas to kick start the brainstorming? Think of food festivals, historical events that happened in and around your city, the ghosts that come out every Friday night…what might be old news to you is big news to potential tourists.
10. Draw a 300-mile circle with your city as the center. Now you’ve got your target audience. Get busy and get creative. Have fun creating something special for your city.
The Hoople Group (hooplegroup.com) loves to help cities and towns discover what is truly special and help turn these ideas into revenue-generating action. Using brainstorming sessions and a quick-response team of marketing experts, we can help energize your group and give you sustainable plans for your city or town. For more information, please contact Peter Kaufman at [email protected] or call (804) 447-4032.
While these suggestions are great for boosterism and tourist campaigns, I strongly question the premise that ‘Creating compelling reasons for people to visit your city is the quickest, most important thing you can do.’
The most important civic thing to do is improve the lives of our current and future citizens that LIVE here. That means creating infrastructure, schools, and green spaces and making sure they are maintained and used properly.
Richmond is not some Carribean banana republic that is forced to rely on tourism. Its about time our City leaders grow up and recognize that.