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Don't forget about the following upcoming event. The Wisconsin Governor's Conference on Tourism will be held at Ho-Chunk Casino on March 12-15. The Department of Tourism offers great programming on tourism trends that could benefit your business. If you go to WIGCOT.org you can register for the conference and see the educational tracks.
I realize that most of what I am about to write is common knowledge to many, but as a refresher for all of us, please take a moment to review the following. We live in a cyclical society. Perhaps one of the biggest influencers in these cycles is the economy. During a good economy, everything is up, especially tourism because there seems to be more disposable income available for people to explore new areas and take more time with their families. Combine a good economy with a healthy marketing budget and currently we are experiencing a good cycle - people are traveling to Door County quite a bit.
The DCVB utilizes many tools to drive visitors into Door County. We also have a few tools that measure the metrics of success from these endeavors. The first is room tax collections, occupancy and ADR (hotel room average daily rate) reports. These reports give us a good look at how the lodging side of the equation is doing in Door County. These lodging indicators are all up in recent years. So what do we use to measure the other facets of tourism? About the only true tool we have other than word of mouth and anecdotal conversation is the county sales tax collections. This tool measures the sales of taxable goods and services in Door County. Just as the lodging indicators have steadily grown year over year, so has the sales tax receipts. We understand that residents also purchase goods and services but we consider these purchases to be our baseline. Everything above this baseline we should consider to be visitor spending. Each month, the DCVB tracks the sales tax report and we keep a 13 year running report. This week I would like to share this report with you.
As I started out today's message I talked about cycles - this is clearly evident in 2009 and 2010 of this report. Also just a reminder as you review the volume of sales: each dollar of county sales tax collected represents $200.00 in gross sales of taxable goods and services.
Best Regards,
Jack Moneypenny, President/CEO
920-818-1131
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MARKETING & SALES
Michelle Rasmusson, Director
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Season of Blossoms Lodging Packages - DUE FRIDAY, MARCH 4TH
It may not seem like it but spring is just around the corner and we are gearing up for our county-wide seasonal promotion - Season of Blossoms. A big part of our spring media message will be the packages created by our members. This is your opportunity to partner with other businesses and promote your packages on DoorCounty.com
For complete details on package requirements, submission deadlines and info on the e-Postcard campaign Click HERE! Questions? Contact Laura Bradley.
Co-op Advertising
eNewsletter
- Only 1 spot left in July & August (reach an audience of over 200,000)
Trip Advisor
Social Media Posts and Ads
- Capitalize on the DCVBs social efforts (FB, Instagram, Twitter)
- Build awareness, grow likes and followers, increase web hits, promote an event or giveaway
- Ability to target specific users through look-alikes and geo-targeting
Other Advertising Opportunities: WI Bride Magazine, Featured Event on DoorCounty.com, Digital Outdoor, DCVB Lobby TV ads,
View the full Co-op Marketing Plan HERE.
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COMMUNICATIONS & PR
Jon Jarosh, Director
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Media
Media assistance was provided to 19 journalists/media outlets in February by providing images, information, on-air/on-camera interviews and/or support for Door County based articles and stories. A few highlights included the Chicago Tribune, Cottage Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Backpacker Magazine, AAA Living and Relish magazine.
Media Marketing Program Update
We welcomed 11 travel journalists to Door County on our winter themed press trip Feb. 18-21, and fortunately the fledgling snow and ice conditions still allowed us to keep most of the activities on our winter themed itinerary. Thank you to all of our partners who hosted travel writers during the trip! Our next organized press trip is scheduled for mid-May.
Media Coverage Highlights
Badger Sportsman magazine ran a Door County ice fishing photo story that was spread out over 4-pages in their March/April 2016 issue.
Travel journalist Brain Clark wrote a story on the Door County Maritime Museum in Sturgeon Bay that ran in the Sunday February 28, 2016 travel section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Check out the online version of the story on JSOnline.com here.
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MEMBERSHIP
Phil Berndt, Director
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Do You Offer Employee Housing?
If you or your business offers employee housing options, here are two ways we can help!
- Post your available housing on the Door County Seasonal Housing Leads Facebook Page! (Making your house, apartment, extra room or trailer available for rent will make a difference.) We are constantly fielding calls from potential employees who have been offered multiple jobs but can't accept them until they have secured their housing for the season. Let's make sure we aren't forcing our best employees to find work outside of Door County.
- Add your Job Posting on www.JobsInDoorCounty.com to the Employee Housing Offered category. This is a new searchable category on the jobs website, so if you already have your job(s) posted on the site, make sure you update your listing category.
Post Your Job Openings - NOW - Especially Summer Jobs!
If you haven't posted your job openings yet - whether you offer housing or not - do it NOW! As a member of the Door County Visitor Bureau, you can post your job openings at no additional charge on JobsInDoorCounty.com (Members RAVE about the qualified employees they have hired from our job site - and often the most organized and qualified applicants are searching online NOW!)
Employee Dorms Proposed
You may have recently heard about the employee housing proposed for the Village of Egg Harbor. If your town or village board isn't looking into this, we encourage you to let them know how important it is to you and your community - because the push needs to come from business owners like you within each municipality. Last summer, Jack made several presentations to our town and village boards about the successful design concept that is working to attract qualified workers to Wisconsin Dells - a concept that encourages a sense of pride and community to mitigate security concerns, and is easily adapted to the scale of each community. As we know from the high number of employee housing inquiries we receive at the Bureau, it's not so much a problem of attracting applicants as it is finding a safe, affordable place to live so they can actually put away some money for the school year.
We Need Your Help
It is our collective efforts to promote Door County that make us so effective, so as you make new friends in our business community, please let them know how important their support really is. You just never know what is going to tip the scales in our favor when someone is deciding where their next trip is going to take them - and it could be one little thing about that business that gets them up here - and into YOUR business while they are HERE!
For everyone's convenience, membership information and applications are available on our members site at: members.doorcounty.com or by giving us a call or sending an email.
Ideally, offer to have us reach out to them - and then let us know who we should contact.
Please know we will NEVER pounce on anyone or make them feel pressured - we're here to help.
* Yvonne Torres, Member Liaison & New Member Services: 920-818-1139
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CERTIFIED TOURISM AMBASSADOR PROGRAM 
Christine Salmon, Program Coordinator
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BECOME A CTA
If you haven't become a Certified Tourism Ambassador, yet, or know someone who should....
-The $25 fee includes class materials, 4-hour class, Certificate, and gold CTA pin.
-The training is informative and interactive, teaching about Door County history, tourism, attractions, resources & customer service.
We look forward to seeing you in a class soon!
2016 Upcoming Classes
Wednesday, March 9, 12:30 - 5:00 pm
Sturgeon Bay Visitor Center **REGISTRATION ENDS TOMORROW**
Thursday, April 21, 8:30 am - 1:00 pm Lautenbach's Orchard Country Winery, Fish Creek Tuesday, May 24, 12:30 - 5:00 pm The Clearing, Ellison Bay Monday, June 27, 9:30 am - 2:30 pm Trueblood Performing Arts Center, Washington Island
CTA OF THE YEAR AWARD NOMINATIONS SOUGHT
TOURISM TRIVIA
~ What do these five photos have in common?
There are many answers to that question! They are all Door County Tourism Ambassadors, they take pride in their knowledge of Door County, they all make visitors smile... and each of them won the CTA of the Year Star Award! We have given out this award for 5 years, and it's time to seek nominations for 2016's CTA of the Year.
Nominations can be submitted by: Managers, Co-workers, Customers, even Self-Nominations (one of our winners was self-nominated). We all know at least one person who deserves to be recognized for the job that they do, serving us and serving others, and making Door County a great place to live. CTAs who are eligible for nomination can be found here (by first name), or here (by company)... and click here to a link to the nomination form and instructions. If you have any questions, please contact Christine at (920) 743-4456 or christine@doorcounty.com.
The deadline to submit the nomination form is Monday, April 4 and the winner will be announced at the National Travel & Tourism Week breakfast on Tuesday, May 3 in front of an enthusiastic crowd!
WHO WILL BE THE NEXT AWARD WINNER?
For more information on the CTA program and how it can benefit you and your business, please contact Christine at christine@doorcounty.com or (920) 818-1134.
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Detour Maps 
Unlike previous years, this spring's detour follows one path and construction promises to be completed before the July 4th weekend.
Need a map you can share with guests & customers Click HERE.
Need a Link to the Detour Map?
Here's a link you can hyperlink into emails, email signatures, confirmation letters, websites, etc.
If you would like an shortened link to share, here it is, HOWEVER, if you try to copy a shortened link when it's active, it will jump to the original URL so, to avoid this frustration, I inserted 2 spaces after the http to keep it from activating. To use it, copy the address and paste it wherever you want - and then delete the 2 spaces after the http to activate the hyperlink.
http ://j.mp/2016Detour
Ordering Guide Books or Niche Brochures
Member partners - Please remember that in order to receive guide books or niche brochures for a weekend orders must be placed with us by Tuesday for delivery on Thursday. We can't guarantee any deliveries requested late in the week due to drivers' schedules. Call or e-mail Jennifer@doorcounty.com
Brochure or Rate Sheet Updates for 2016?
If you have new rate sheets, please remember to stop in to swap them out and, if you have updated brochures, bring them in - we can hold 500 or more! If you didn't drop off printed brochures for our Welcome Center last year, but intend to this year, please contact Mary Beth to let her know so that she saves space in our racks for your materials. Marybeth@doorcounty.com
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