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 Over the last year, the Bureau has made many changes with the
intention of increasing its visibility and improving the means by
which it promotes Logan County.
Among one of the Bureau's biggest efforts was the hiring of DCC
Marketing of Decatur to create a new image for the organization.
This new image included a change of logo, a new website, a new name,
and the development of a marketing playbook that will guide the
Bureau in the right direction over the next few years.
Tuesday, Wallick offered some brief descriptions of the work that
was done by the marketing firm. First of all she said that the firm
had paid visits to Lincoln. Their representatives had met with
various factions of the community and had done some man on the
street surveys, determining what the general public knows about the
area, and what they consider to be important.
The firm, Wallick said, had also designed a demographic and
geographic picture of tourists in Illinois. The result found that
the majority of tourists in this region are from the Midwest, are
middle-aged at approximately 46 years of age, they travel by car,
and without kids.
 When traveling, typical tourists are interested in water, art,
history, scenery, events, recreation, attractions, festivals, tours,
Amish, parks, antiques, ethnic, orchard, child, music, dining,
museum, farm, races, and theater, with water being the most popular
and theater being the least.
Of those top reasons, Wallick pointed out that Logan County and
Lincoln offers several of these niches. The Bureau plans to draw
greater attention to these niches to bring more visitors into the
area. She noted to the Council, “We have great things here. We need
to package those and sell them to the masses.”
She offered up some commentary on the expansion of the Lincoln Arts
& Balloon Festival. The singular festival will be broken into four
parts in 2015 with new attractions added to or combined with the
existing segments.
She noted that last year, the festival suffered low attendance due
to the heat. With everything combined as one event, it was a make or
break situation that ended up being disappointing. She said by
breaking the event into parts and expanding the offerings, there
would be more opportunity to bring visitors and their money to Logan
County.
She outlined that this year the Up in Smoke on the Square portion of
the festival would become “Pigs and Swigs” and would be held in
June. New events will be added to the very popular barbecue
competition such as live musical entertainment.
In July, the Arts in the Park weekend will include the popular art
show from the original festival. The added attractions will include
wine tasting, gourmet food trucks, and “Merlot and a Masterpiece,”
which will offer the public an opportunity to create personal
masterpieces.
In August, the Balloon Festival will take place on its normal
weekend with activities being focused at the Logan County Airport.
In September, the 1800’s Craft Fair at Postville Courthouse will
couple with the National Railsplitting Festival.
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Wallick told the council that $30.7 billion is spent on
tourist activities in the State of Illinois each year, making
the state number eight in the country for attracting tourists.
The goal of the local Bureau is to make sure Logan County gets
its share of those dollars.
She said coming up soon, Tourism will offer familiarity tours
conducted locally. She explained these would be events where
that local folks familiarized with every attraction available
would load up on a bus tour of local sites.
She noted that everyone should be a concierge for Lincoln and
Logan County. Word of mouth is a great way to promote the
community and its attractions, but people need to know what the
community offers. The bus tours will familiarize participants
with all aspects of local tourism and give them better talking
points when representing the area.
Wallick said that tourism is not a one person job. Everyone in
the community needs to be involved. Part of that, she said,
could be done through Facebook posts, sending photos to
Instagram, and just getting the word out about all that this
area has to offer tourists.
Other changes that have been made as a part of the marketing
plan include a new name for the Bureau and a new website. The
Bureau now goes by Logan County Tourism Bureau and the website
is Destination Logan County IL.
Wallick also shared a timeline of goals to increased tourism
that the Bureau has set. She showed advertising goals, and her
other plans that include Road Shows. She explained that the goal
is to take her show on the road to visit all the communities in
Logan County and offer similar presentations. She said the
presentation on Tuesday to the Council was her second Road Show;
a few weeks ago she presented at the Lincoln/Logan County
Chamber of Commerce Ambassador Retreat.
 Wallick commented on the creation of the Logan County Alliance
and the fact that the Bureau was now a subsidiary of that
organization. She said this was a positive step for the Bureau.
She told the council that Tourism and the Chamber will benefit
from the new Alliance because it will combine resources and make
for a stronger organization on the whole. She noted in one of
the slides in her PowerPoint, bullet points of what the
partnership will do for Tourism and the Chamber. She said the
partnership will offer the Bureau more resources, more staff,
more people working toward a common goal, better communications,
better use of financial resources; will create positions with
benefits and upward mobility, and give the entire Alliance a
better chance of success.
To visit the new website go to
http://www.destinationlogancountyil.com/
[Nila Smith] |
