LLCEO learns marketing techniques with a visit to Atlanta Tourism

 

[January 26, 2025] 

On Thursday, January 23rd, the Land of Lincoln Center for Entrepreneurial Opportunity (LLCEO) students visited Scott McCoy of the City of Atlanta Tourism Bureau. McCoy addressed the group drawing the connection between tourism and economic development.

This year there are eight students participating in the LLCEO. They are Peyton Bunner, Adalyn Reed, Finley Hewitt, Cheyenne Medrano, Kyle Koehler, Ivy Sandel, Alek Claudio, all students of Lincoln Community High School and Kennedy McCree, a student at Hartsburg-Emden High School.

McCoy opened the day interacting with the students by asking them what their long-term career goals are. The answers varied from heading to college after high school then entering into a variety of career choices including business, becoming an attorney, orthodontist, and pursuing a career in animation. Two students said they would pursue businesses they have already started, and one student intended to attend a specialized trade school and become an electric lineman.

The second question to the students was why they had chosen to take the LLCEO program. Answers ranged for a desire to learn more about business, to learn more about communication and networking and earning dual credits for college. It was also mentioned that when making college applications as well as work applications, being a student of the CEO programs looked good on a resume.

McCoy noted that all of the students had spoken of higher education in college or trade schools. He said that education was a very good thing, but at the same time, life experiences are highly valuable. He said he personally did not have a college degree, but his wife is a highly educated professional working in education.

McCoy said he had grown up in Pontiac, but in recent years he and his wife moved to Bloomington for her work. He said that he had served as the mayor of Pontiac for a time, and during that time, had worked with the city to make that community a Route 66 tourist destination. Now, McCoy is serving more or less as a consultant for the city of Atlanta, working with them to increase traffic into the community by exploiting the Route 66 connection in the town to its fullest extent.

McCoy explained that Route 66 is a national highway that runs from Chicago west to California. He said that in the majority of cases, tourists begin their road trip on Route 66 in Chicago, putting Illinois in the early stages of the tour. He said this was important information because when the trip starts is when travelers have the most money in their budget for their trip. The goal then has to be to set up communities to attract visitors and offer not just places to “drive by” and shoot photos. Visitors need to be drawn to stop, get out of their cars and into local attractions and businesses.

McCoy said Pontiac was not actually on Route 66, so the town had to create its own connection. Fortunately there was historical proof that for a very short period of time, Route 66 had been diverted through Pontiac while road construction was underway on the Mother Road. Because of this, the town could declare that they had a Route 66 designation albeit temporary.

The first big opportunity for Pontiac came in the form of the large mural that is very popular in the town. A mural depicting Route 66 that has an area where people can park and take photos of themselves and their vehicles in front of the mural has been very successful. McCoy said it started slow. When he started marketing Route 66 in Pontiac it was estimated that there were zero stops in the community because of the highway. In the first year after the mural installation the estimate grew to 17,000. Today, McCoy said Pontiac gets around 100,000 visitors per year thanks to marketing the community as a Route 66 attraction, and it is the third largest tourist destination in Illinois.

Like Pontiac in the early years, McCoy said Atlanta and Lincoln are both undermarketed as Route 66 destinations. He is working with the city to increase the visibility of Atlanta and is enjoying some success. He added that bringing more people into Atlanta is having a positive impact on economic development and noted that there have been at least three to four new businesses come to town because of it.

He told students that Atlanta and Lincoln have another good thing going for it. For those who start their journey in Chicago, their first day stop is going to come in Logan County. That equates to motel stays visits to restaurants, and some local shopping. He said all this needs to be promoted so that tourists will know that their first stop is going to be a Route 66 stop worth making. He noted that Atlanta has one motel that recently went under new management and has been redecorated with a Route 66 theme that is making it a destination in its own right.

McCoy said that the animated movie “Cars” did a lot for Route 66 because if you pay attention, the movie is Route 66 with all the stops being locations along the Mother Road. He said that the traffic on the route has increased substantially. So, getting the people to stop is the key. One method of doing this is through a passport system that draws visitors into the communities to get their “passport stamped.” Atlanta participates in several such passports including one McCoy has created personally via his side business of promoting Route 66 on the whole.

He said that Atlanta has several stamp opportunities including the sites and several of the businesses. The businesses in town are also working together in the passport program by urging visitors to collect more stamps by directing them to others in town who are on the stamp list.

McCoy said that Route 66 is a worldwide attraction with hundreds of thousands of visitors coming from foreign countries. He asked the students to guess what country has the most people traveling Route 66. Students threw out several answers, but McCoy said that the two top countries in the world with populations visiting Route 66 were Australia and New Zealand.

Asked why Route 66 is so attractive, he said that Route 66 is an all-inclusive piece of Americana. He said that along Route 66, tourists experience big cities, small towns, agriculture, industry, rivers, mountains, deserts and the ocean. They see livestock and wildlife, and things that baffle them, such as grain elevators. He noted that the Atlanta grain elevator is in the heart of town, and one of the more commonly asked questions at the American Giants Museum is “What is that there?” referring to the elevator grain bins.

McCoy said that marketing Route 66 is not a priority locally because it is promoted by the state. So the priority becomes marketing the unique aspects of the community. He said Atlanta has unique aspects pertaining to Route 66 because in has two alignments, but what is going to attract visitors are the things that are unique to the community such as the museums that are focused on not just Route 66 but also other historic aspects. He noted the American Giants Museum as one such marking tool as well as the recently opened coal mine museum.

In addition he said local or regional marketing was targeted in the appropriate time of year. He said the typical tourist season in this area is April to October. Therefore that is the time when museums are open, and Route 66 stops are promoted. He said that it is target marketing.

McCoy said it is important to have what is wanted and needed when it is wanted and needed. There is no need to have Route 66 attractions open in the off season as the overhead costs to open the locations are not justified.

He said this was like something known as the “hurricane technique.” He said in the south during hurricane season Walmart loads in massive supplies on one product in particular. He asked students to take a gander at what that product might be. Students named off practical items such as bottled water, toilet paper, bread and milk. All good guesses McCoy said but no. The number one product overstocked in Walmart during hurricane season is strawberry pop tarts.

He said pop tarts are a self-contained product with a long shelf life that can be eaten straight from the package. They are wrapped in sets of two so what is not unwrapped remains fresh. McCoy said that is the crux of marketing; determining what people will want and need and when they will want and need it.

McCoy went on to talk a bit about his side business and how he utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) and applications to draw traffic to his website which is Route 66 focused. He also spoke about using AI in interpretation tools. He said he had an earpiece he can use to hear instant translations from a foreign language to one he understands. And he also gives an earpiece to the visitor he’s conversing with that will translate his words into a language they understand. He said there are also phone aps that do the same thing and those are utilized as well.

At the end of the visit, he opened the floor for questions and was asked about his term as mayor in Pontiac. He said he was somewhat of an accidental mayor. There had been a dust up between the city government and constituents because of some inappropriate pay changes for government officials. He said the community had turned out in force to protect and McCoy had been among them and had been quite verbal at the meeting. Afterward, someone in the crowd suggested he run for mayor. He said he considered it, decided to run, did not expect to win, but did.

Once he was in office, he said he was fully involved and that it had been a time when the Pontiac community had taken some hard hits including a big flood event. McCoy himself went to Washington D.C. and fought for recognition as a community deserving of disaster relief. He explained that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Illinois Emergency Management Agency had denied Pontiac’s application saying the community damage was “too small” and did not warrant assistance. McCoy said he worked to get that assistance and succeeded, making the community of Pontiac the smallest claim on record with FEMA and IEMA.

From the left LLCEO facilitator Sarah Tomaszewski, McCoy, Cheyenne Medrano, Ivy Sandel, Kyle Koehler, Finley Hewitt (front), Alek Claudio (back), Kennedy McCree (front), Peyton Bunner (back) and Adalyn Reed.

With class time nearing its end, McCoy gave each of the students a souvenir lapel pin, then the group posed for a photo op before heading out to their respective high schools to start their normal class day.

[Nila Smith]