Chamber shared thoughts and ideas to the City Council
By Paul Hall on Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE, OR – (Information provided by Union County Chamber of Commerce) La Grande City Council and Union County Chamber held a work session last night (Monday night), on a joint Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the City of La Grande and Union County Commissioners for tourism promotion services. This is an annual meeting / work session to go over what the Chamber did throughout the course of the last (fiscal) year and review our plans (Program of Work) for the upcoming year.
Some highlights from the FY 2020-2021:
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the Chamber to completely shift the course of our year’s plans; however, it gave a unique opportunity to undertake a strong foundational approach in laying the groundwork for approaching tourism promotion strategically, once it is safe to do so (once guidelines for not promoting non-essential travel are lifted).
Last year the staff at the Union County Chamber had the opportunity to work with a “Destination Marketing” professional consultant to answer the following questions: Who should we be marketing to? How should we be reaching this identified target audience? What should we focus our promotion on highlighting? While we know it is the antithesis of good marketing to try to be all things to all people, we were able to more eloquently and efficiently hone in our messaging and target this messaging in ways our demographic will be most likely to find us.
Additionally, while pulling a number of the marketing campaigns in lieu of promoting “wide open spaces….once it is safe to travel”, the Chamber did not go dormant during the pandemic; rather, they took the opportunity to launch a new image-centric fresh, vibrant website with trip itineraries and a newly-found focus on outdoor recreation, touring, and historical landmarks and agritourism highlights – based on our marketing research.
The Chamber have already seen a 3,500 percent increase in requests for visitors guides (going from on average one to two per month, up to 35+ per month) – sending them out from as close as the Boise and Portland markets, to as far as Arizona, Michigan, Tennessee, and even some to Florida – in the three months since the new website went live.
Also, the Chamber staff took the opportunity to revamp the TRT grants – more announcements on those coming soon – to increase their scope and economic impact, as well as to build and further the success of the projects we know our target audiences seek.
To highlight some of the upcoming FY 2021-2022 projects:
Union County Chamber are planning to further bolster the digital marketing campaigns to reach wider, yet more targeted audiences, while at the same time leaning more heavily on these digital campaigns to measure the reach and ensure the Chamber has good targets.
The Chamber is planning to heavily focus on our presence on TravelOregon.com and our cities, events, and assets listings and further building out trip itineraries and is hoping to serve as a “RARE Host Community” and host a graduate-level intern from the University of Oregon to help with a targeted effort and focus on some of these projects.
If approved by the partners involved, Union County Chamber hopes to work with local photographers and videographers to develop a visual assets portfolio in advertising and other materials, as well as sharing the images with local partners for cohesive use. The Chamber would also like to research “customer service training programs” which can be offered throughout businesses – so each frontline worker is empowered and excited to serve as an ambassador for those visiting (and possibly considering relocating) to La Grande / Union County.
