Director promotes regionalism
Visitors don't care about county boundaries, the tourism director says.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Regionalism is the key to promoting tourism in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys, Mahoning County's new convention and visitors bureau director said.
"We need to create a bigger, more interesting pie together to be able to attract more people and give them more diversity [of attractions[ where they have a reason to stay longer," said Phil Moore, who became CVB director in January. "They don't know where the county lines are, and they don't care," Moore said of tourists and other visitors from outside this area.
Although CVB budgets aren't being shared across county lines, Moore said he has met with his fellow CVB directors in Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mercer and Lawrence counties, and they have endorsed his regional approach. Columbiana County does not have a CVB.
Moore said his goal is to change this area from a pass-through stop for bus tours headed elsewhere to more of a long-stay destination that produces more tourism revenue for the local economy.
What draws tourists
For the most part, each county in this region has attractions that are special to that county, and "we don't compete over it," Moore said. Mahoning County has more hotels, restaurants and arts and cultural attractions than other area counties, but Warren has the National Packard Museum and downtown historic sites, he noted. Trumbull, Geauga, Mercer and Lawrence counties have Amish communities, and Ashtabula County has numerous covered bridges and wineries, he added.
"History and heritage tourism is the heaviest-volume tourism in this country today," Moore said. "We're positioning ourselves as the gateway to the historic Western Reserve," he said, adding that this area is "ideally suited for highway travel."
Mercer, Trumbull and Mahoning counties also have more top nationally-ranked public golf courses "than virtually any other part of the country," he observed.
Moore said he and officials of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which operates Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, are discussing ways to attract out-of-state golfers to play here on reasonably-priced golf courses with cooler weather and less-crowded conditions than they'd experience during a Florida summer. Allegiant Air already flies regularly from Orlando to Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, he noted.
First major campaign
Moore's first major publicity effort will be a city magazine and radio ad campaign in Erie, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Columbus to promote Youngstown State University's Summer Festival of the Arts, together with a direct mail campaign to YSU alumni living in those areas. "We're billing this as an ideal reason to bring your family back for a visit," he said.
The Mahoning and Trumbull County CVBs will also help defray expenses for opening ceremonies and field preparation for the Pony National Softball Tournament, which is returning to the region for the third time this summer for two weeks, using fields in many local communities and bringing more than 5,000 people here.
The Mahoning County CVB's efforts are funded by a 3 percent hotel bed tax, which generated 165,000 for the bureau last year.
To help prepare local hoteliers, restaurateurs and attraction directors for the forthcoming tourism promotions, Moore is conducting the first in a quarterly series of regional tourism workshops from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 23 at the Davis Education and Visitors Center at Mill Creek Park's Fellows Riverside Gardens.