It was great to see so many of you during our recent Connecticut Office of Tourism Listening Tour. This 10-stop tour brought together hundreds of leaders from tourism/cultural businesses, associations, chambers of commerce, councils of governments, arts and history coalitions and towns/cities from all across the state.
To build on this momentum, we are now launching our Regional Marketing Program. Our mission is to partner with organizations from every region to work even more closely together to promote Connecticut’s $14 billion tourism industry.
My deepest thanks to all those who are already stepping up to help lead this initiative, including the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce, Northeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce, Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce, Shoreline Chamber of Commerce, Capitol Region Council of Governments, MetroHartford Alliance, Connecticut Lodging Association, Waterbury Regional Chamber of Commerce, Northwest Hills Council of Governments, City of Norwalk, Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, Old Saybrook Chamber of Commerce, Connecticut League of History Organizations and Connecticut Humanities.
Tops on everyone’s priority list is to simply help more partners take advantage of the no-cost marketing opportunities already available to them. So each Regional Marketing Program partner has agreed to assist the Office of Tourism in working with their constituents to:
- optimize their free listing page on CTvisit.com – which attracted 4.2 million visitors last year
- suggest story ideas we may integrate into our ongoing in-state, regional, national and international PR outreach
- connect us with partners and communities willing to participate in media/blogger familiarization tours
- provide news we can share on our highly popular social media sites
- gather story ideas and imagery for potential inclusion on our website and digital marketing as well as our e-newsletter, which reaches 250,000 subscribers each month
- suggest destinations we can promote to international travel and group tour operators
Together we’re focused on driving more tourism business to each of our regions — by eliminating costly duplication of efforts while maximizing our collective clout when pitching to the media, sharing on social media and negotiating for advertising.
To learn more about our Regional Marketing Program or any of our initiatives, please contact me, Randy Fiveash, randall.fiveash@ct.gov or my associate, Rosemary Bove, rosemary.bove@ct.gov.
Watch for more program updates to come. In the meantime, we appreciate all you do to make Connecticut a still revolutionary place to visit!