News Hospitality Michigan’s Great Outdoors gets noticed
Michigan’s Great Outdoors gets noticed
Order Reprints
Follow @MiBiz
By Lisa Mackinder | M&C
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
WEST MICHIGAN — Sandy Crandall, president of Michigan’s Great Outdoors, believes her group was ahead of the game by collaborating long before it became popular to do so.
“We got more bang for our buck doing things together,” Crandall told M&C about the reason for forming an informal partnership of tourism leaders in Manistee, Mason, Oceana, Lake and Newaygo counties.
 |
|
Several West Michigan counties have joined together for the regional promotion of Michigan’s Great Outdoors, linking tourism with the fishing, hunting, camping and other recreational opportunities the area presents. Here, salmon anglers head out of Manistee Lake with the backdrop of a hazy late summer sunrise. PHOTO: JOE BOOMGAARD |
That forward-thinking, synergistic approach has led to many accomplishments, including the creation of a fall tourism conference that provides education, training and networking. The conference supports the emphasis Michigan’s Great Outdoors places on education, which the group sees as an important tool for achieving its mission of partnering together to promote tourism for a stronger economy.
Dave Lorenz, managing director at Travel Michigan, said conferences such as this are important for a few reasons. For one, it educates members on what’s happening and keeps everyone aware of the focus for promoting that region.
“Whenever you have these types of collaborations, you have to make sure you’re speaking off the same page,” Lorenz told M&C.
Beyond that, to some degree, he said everyone serves as a travel guide. Lorenz explained that talking to, assisting and welcoming visitors has an impact. “(The) experience they’re having generates economic development for the communities,” he said.
Crandall also spoke to tourism’s economic impact, calling it an “immediate money turn around.” She said that as an industry, tourism runs neck-and-neck with agriculture, but the two also go hand-in-hand. Crandall believes people are looking for nostalgic trips and “five senses” experiences. She used an example of going apple picking on a farm in Mason County as one of those memorable occasions — especially to an individual unfamiliar with farm life.
The Michigan’s Great Outdoors conference serves as a way of bringing together highly qualified tourism and business development persons. Participants include legislators, and representatives from chambers of commerce, economic development and extension offices — to name a few. Identifying most legislators as “pro-tourism,” Crandall said gaining their initial involvement meant finding a good day for their schedule — like Monday or Friday — and then simply asking for participation. To market the conference, the group sends email blasts with applications to chambers of commerce and sends out mailings to locally elected officials. The fall tourism conference is held at a different locale within the five counties each year. Though the site for this year’s event has yet to be determined, it has been earmarked for early October.
“We’re not a Traverse City and we’re not a Grand Rapids, so we had to get representation here,” said Crandall, explaining why creating the opportunity was an important focus to the organization. “This made sense that we could do a high impact conference.”
Pointing out that a multi-county region is a vast area to promote as one entity, Lorenz noted the value in educating individuals and organizations on what role they play and how to maximize it. That’s why he sees the importance of bringing everyone together for the conference.
“We’re all pieces of the puzzle,” said Lorenz.
The emphasis Michigan’s Great Outdoors places on education hasn’t gone without notice. The group recently received an Innovative Tourism Collaboration award from Governor Snyder at the 2011 Governor’s Awards after the group was recognized for its education and training.
Crandall said the state is looking for collaboration. Michigan’s Great Outdoors and its focus on education — with particular emphasis on the conference — made it stand out for the 2011 Governor’s Awards in the category of education and training for a few reasons, including yielding thoughts back to Lansing, communicating needs to legislators and keeping in touch with the trends.
Using the word “priceless” to describe the five-county partnership, Crandall adheres to the two-heads-are-better-than-one theory. She believes working together elicits great brainstorming sessions and extends networking ability. Crandall noted if she doesn’t have a contact in her pocket, one of her partners probably does. Additionally, because all of the members pay dues, collaboration stretches dollars and provides more opportunities for things like marketing and attending trade shows.
Lorenz also recognizes the value in partnering to keep tourism ticking.
“They’re stronger together than they would ever be separate,” he said. M&C
