August 22, 2006

Auglaize-Mercer County Convention and Visitor's Bureau

Donna Grube, director of the AMCCVB for the past 3 years, addressed the club about the bureau and its activities to promote tourism in the local area.  It is a non-profit organization that is one of two county bureaus in Ohio.  It was developed in the late 1980's by the Celina and St Marys area Chamber of Commerce.  It is governed by a 19 member Board of Directors with 2 workers serving visitors to the office.

She shared that their goal is to bring tourists and revenue into the area.  They have developed various strategies for marketing including 25K visitors guides that are mailed out, a website, a Discovery Guide that is distributed to visitors in hotels and campgrounds, regional presence at sports, vacations and boat shows and a variety of campaigns in the media.  Marketing represents a significant portion of their operating budget but is a necessary expense.

They developed a new campaign strategy as of the latter part of 2005 to promote the area as the Greater Grand Lake St Marys Region versus labeling the area by county since most people do not relate to the names of counties when traveling.  Instead, a notable landmark such as Grand Lake is more easily identified by travelers.

A secondary goal for the organization is to bring conventions and regional meetings into the area.

To emphasize the importance of tourism, Donna shared that in 2005, $5.1M was brought into the area by way of hotels and $49M in other spending was brought in through various means.  Rising energy prices have influenced travel across the country however, it is believed that the area has much to offer people who travel from local regions in the Western Ohio/Eastern Indiana areas.

For more information, please follow this link to the bureau's website.

Hosting Rotarian: Mark Cisco