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ErieBlogs.com Op-Ed: VisitErie
Posted by Mike on November 14, 2007
Welcome to the first in our series of op-ed pieces. In this series, we’ll be giving people and businesses in our area an opportunity to tell us about them and what they have going on. I’m excited about it and I hope you enjoy reading them and starting a dialogue.
In this inaugural piece, Chris Pennsy, Communications Specialist at the newly renamed VisitErie tells us about their recent changes, their programs and plans for the future. If you have a question for Chris, post them in the comments for this post and if she’s game, she can post responses there as well.
If you would like to recommend someone for an op-ed piece or other Q&A, email me and let me know.
Without further ado, here’s Chris.
I work for VisitErie, have now for almost seven years, and I absolutely without question love what I do. How many of us can say that about our job? Promoting Erie is an easy thing to do because I love just about everything about our city, minus the oddball politics and old-school mentality. I’ve lived here all my life and I made the choice to stay for the duration. Erie is a great big small town with loads of potential and I want to be around to see what happens next and I’d like to believe that maybe I might even be able to be a small part of that.
So, let me tell you a bit about the organization I work for. VisitErie is the leader of economic development and marketing for tourism. We are the primary tourism promotion agency whose sole purpose is to increase, promote and support the tourism industry in Erie County. VisitErie was previously called the Erie Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. Our name change officially took effect on October 11 but we have been anticipating and preparing for this change for quite some time now. About 6 months ago, our staff and a few of our board members sat down with a professional company (kudos to Don Moore and the folks over at Decision Associates) to lay the ground work for a comprehensive three year strategic plan for our organization. The plan took some time to finalize and polish but the end result is one heck of a good plan if I do say so myself. Part of that plan included a name change.
For as long as I can remember, most of the people in the local community thought that the Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) was one in the same with the Chamber of Commerce. Of course it didn’t help that our offices are virtually right on top of each other at the Intermodal Transportation Center or that we shared the same phone number and receptionist. Even though we had officially split from the Chamber back in July 2001 and became our own separate 501-c6 organization, the confusion remained. There was also additional confusion with the construction of the Bayfront Convention Center. Since our name had the word “convention” in it, the logical thought process was that we obviously have something to do with the convention center, be it running it, working out of it or just overall being in charge of it. So when the CVB staff and a group of board members sat down to layout our strategic plan, the need to change our name was pretty strong. VisitErie is a clear and definable name that without question, tells everyone what we do. VisitErie is in the business for promoting Erie and bringing visitors and their money into our area. Many CVB’s are following this popular trend; to change from a bureau name to a more visitor friendly name, if you will. Pittsburgh and Rochester are two cities that come to mind for they both changed from bureaus to “Visit” monikers and have had widely accepted success. So far, the feedback we have received has been positive and the general consensus is we made the right move at the right time. In addition, VisitErie has adopted a new phone number to further distance ourselves from other organizations. (By the way, our new number is 814-454-1000)
VisitErie developed a three-year strategic plan to help guide our organization in recognizing and increasing the growth of tourism for Erie and Erie County. For that to happen and be successful, we also need to find additional funding. A misconception is that since we are a “bureau” we are governmental and therefore receive plenty of funding from various sources. Oh if that were only true. Currently our annual budget is around $800,000. To put things in perspective, that’s pretty low compared to other cities. Even Reading and Butler County PA have larger budgets than we do with only a fraction of assets compared to the Erie area. Most of our funding comes from the hotel tax. Of the 5% collected tax, VisitErie receives 1% of that, last year that totaled about $452,000. The Erie County Convention Center Authority receives the remaining 4%. The rest of VisitErie’s budget comes from the state matching fund grant program, membership fees and other smaller revenue streams. However big or small our budget is, I think we are doing a good job of bringing visitors in whether its individuals, motorcoach groups or conventions/conferences. But there is so much more we could be doing so this is where our strategic plan comes into play. Identifying additional funding revenue streams and marketing options is crucial if we are ever going to grow as an organization in promoting Erie. We have developed strategies and action steps to help us implement the plan and reach our goals.
I was asked to write this entry in the hopes of clearing up confusion and providing some light on who we are and what we do. I hope this has helped. If anyone is interested in reading a copy of our strategic plan, please email me at cvb1@visiteriepa.com and I would be more than happy to share it with you.
Posted by Mike at November 14, 2007 2:32 PM
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