The Campbell River Visitor Centre has been funded for at least three more years.
At its most recent meeting, Kristen Soder of Destination Campbell River presented city council with updates on the organization’s marketing strategies and merchandise offerings, along with various other promotional materials – including a new official community map – and announced the Visitor Centre had received approval from Destination BC for its operational funding through 2021. Soder began her presentation by passing around bags containing the latest marketing items, which are now available at the Visitor Information Centre, as well as other locations around town.
She then launched into the current marketing strategy outside our town’s borders – which, after all, is pretty important for driving visitor traffic to our community.
“We’ve been working hard to strengthen the brand story that came from the community consultation during our Place DNA process last year,” Soder said, “and I’d like to show off how we’re incorporating these visuals and messaging into our marketing material.”
The “sizzle that sells the steak,” Soder says, will be the highlighting of eight particular local amenities and/or landmarks, including places like Elk Falls and Discovery Pier, as well as a five-pack of different excursion itineraries, “that are designed to be just the first of what we hope will be an ongoing series of day-trip ideas, which is a great way for us to bundle experiences for different types of travelers to the area.”
Soder also announced recent updates to Destination Campbell River’s website, campbellriver.travel, which includes a new welcome video, entitled “Welcome to the Wild.” She also explained how Destination Campbell River monitors social media platforms and responds in real-time with marketing tools targeted to what both locals and visitors alike are posting.
“Social media is arguably our most measurable and important medium,” Soder says. “It provides us immediate insight into what our visitors are enjoying and what they are interested in. It’s a critical tool for us to gauge the sentiment of potential guests, as well as locals.”
She says their team engages daily with platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TripAdvisor, “just to make sure we have that real-time engagement with visitors whether they’re already here or still in the stages of planning their trip.”
Soder also told council the Visitor Centre is now officially fully staffed.
“We’ve recently hired three new seasonal staff, and they are all rockstars,” Soder says. “They are all locals and we are really, really impressed with what they’ve brought to the team.”
For more on what Destination Campbell River is doing to bring more visitors to town pop in and have a chat with them at their office – located in the Community Centre – give them a call at 250-286-6901 or email campbellriver@destinationthink.com
