Peggy Coleman, Director of the CVB and VP of Tourism & Community Relations
Back to Work at the CVB
I’m thrilled to be back as the Director of the CVB and VP, Tourism & Community Relations for the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce & CVB. So much has changed since I last worked here in the 90’s: new hotel development, new product offerings, upgrades to area theaters and to the Commons, to name just a few. The one thing that has remained constant is a talented, dedicated, and professional CVB team who inspire visitation from across the globe and provides stellar visitor services to encourage repeat visitation.
In early June, the marketing team launched a new social media campaign including an Instagram takeover called “Ithaca is People” with positive results including increased engagement on multiple platforms and double the followers in just 25 days. Local residents, community leaders, and tourism partner representatives will be taking over the Visit Ithaca Instagram for a week each, and showcasing all that Ithaca and Tompkins County have to offer. The campaign will cross platform to integrate with our Facebook page, the visitithaca.com website, and more.
Since early June, a new visitors center at Taughannock overlook beat all expectations for quantity of visitors—over 8,000 to date. We learned some interesting information from thousands of visitors representing 47 states (top states include PA, NJ, FL, OH, MA, CT, MD, TX and VA) and 47 countries—most notably Canada, Israel, China, UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, and India. External touch points are also up YTD, thanks to increased on-campus visits.
The sales team has booked over 50 leads, with projected revenue of over $750K, and nearly 2,300 room nights of business. We partnered with local tourism partners to highlight all Ithaca has to offer at the Empire State Society of Association Executives trade show, and also attended multiple bus association shows which help yield motor coach business—with multiple bookings already confirmed for 2017.
We have many exciting programs in the pipeline for the rest of 2016, including updating the Visitor Profile Study and partnering with the County Tourism Program and Cornell Cooperative Extension on an agriculinary tourism project to develop and promote agriculinary tourism assets in Tompkins County. In the meantime, I encourage you all to get out and enjoy our destination as a visitor.
Safe travels,
Peggy
To read the full mid year CVB report, click here. .