2003 Tourism Highlights
By Debra Opferbeck, Tourism Specialist

We experienced a great year full of activities, new events and ideas and excitement. Our department also had a personnel change, we welcome our new Tourism Assistant, Becky Smith to our unit. Becky formerly worked for the department in a different capacity. We are looking forward to the coming year and all it has to offer.

The 2004 Travel Guide

Tourism Conference, Seminars, and Travel Shows

• In April we held the Event Tourism Conference at the Old Library Restaurant in Olean in conjunction with Greater Olean Chamber of Commerce. Guest speakers included Jan van Harssel, Ed.D., Niagara University and Sandy Hays, Lewiston Business Association Director. Dr. van Harssel spoke about Local Opportunities in Events Management and Event Tourism. Ms Hays’ subject was Best Practices in Destination and Place Marketing Strategies with an Events Show and Tell. 
  
• Our department held two seminars in the spring of 2003. Tourism Marketing Seminar was held at the South Dayton Hotel in May. Mike Winicki of the Cattaraugus County Business Development Corporation spoke on ideas for successfully marketing your tourism business with a question and answer period following. In June, Mike also spoke on Developing a Powerful Brochure in 7 easy steps. This seminar was held at the Victory Gardens in Cattaraugus.
  
• We have reached out to new areas for our travel show presence this past year. We had booths at WNY’s Women’s show in Clarence, Forever Young show in Hamburg, Kinzua Outdoor Show in Bradford, National Wild Turkey Federation State Convention in Rochester as well as other local events and fairs.
  
• We have added three regional golf shows to our schedule in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo. We also represented our county at Sport and Travel shows held in Cincinnati, Columbus, Rochester and Cleveland.

FAM Tours
On May 20 & 21, we participated in FAM tours of Chautauqua & Cattaraugus Counties. This was held in conjunction with Erie County BOCES I, Chautauqua County Visitor’s Bureau and Cattaraugus County Tourism. Tour Operators were invited to join the tours of both counties with a trade show being held at the Chautauqua Institution for area businesses to showcase their establishments.

Cattaraugus County Enchanted Mountains Website
The tourism staff has worked closely with Gary Cappelletti, the County’s Web Technician, on the Enchanted Mountains website (www.enchantedmountains.info), which the County promotes extensively as a tool to help endorse tourism in our region. The website has gone through many improvements since its inception. Highlights include:

• New technology that allows for faster page loading and accurate information to be displayed;
• Hundreds of new photographs have been added to show the County’s numerous unique tourism attractions;
• A calendar of events that is easily searchable for any day/month of the year;
• Listings for accommodations, restaurants, shopping and places of interest and
• Interactive polls that allow visitors to give feedback.
  

Total visits to the website in 2003 was 885,125, which included over 23,000 new, unique visitors.

Co-operative Advertising
New co-operative advertising was done on a trial basis in the Rochester area. Olean and Salamanca businesses joined the tourism department in full-page ads that also incorporated a contest with overnight packages as the prizes. This was a huge success and resulted in a database of hundreds of contacts in the Rochester area. 

Regional Motorcoach Book
Our county has been increasing its participation in the Regional Motorcoach book. New packages have been developed for group tours to draw that target market to our area.

Building Snowmobile Tourism Market
Our Department developed a map depicting snowmobile trails in our County and listing local snowmobile clubs that provide information on trail access in their areas. This map is available on our website for viewing and downloading. We also have a 24-hour hotline for snowmobile conditions.

I-86 Information Center
Preparations are being made for the July 2004 opening of the I-86 Information Center. Plans are in the early stages of coordinating a volunteer workforce to man the Information Center.

Enchanted Mountains Theme
We continue to encourage local businesses to incorporate our “brand name” into their advertisements, both in print and other media (radio, television and Internet). We offer financial assistance through the Cooperative Advertising Program to aid those businesses that agree to use our logo in their advertisements.

Overall, 2003 was a year of growth with new initiatives being developed in our marketing, advertising and motorcoach reach. We saw great results from all of our new endeavors and plan to continue to strive for our tourism related businesses that we may all grow together. 

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