Tourism bureau has new slogan

Tuesday, 21 November 2006

By TOM JACKSON
tomjackson@sanduskyregister.com

"Go Coast Ohio" will soon be gone as a tourism slogan for Erie County. - Instead, the Sandusky/Erie County Visitor Convention Bureau Inc. has settled on a new slogan designed to lure thousands of free-spending tourists to the area: "Lake Erie Shores Islands."

The new campaign theme will be deployed in advertising and visitor guides for next tourism season, said Joan Van Offeren, executive director of the visitors bureau.

As Van Offeren delivered her quarterly report at Monday's meeting of the Erie County Commissioners, Commissioner Sparky Weilnau asked if the new slogan will be used in the visitors bureau's long-planned branding campaign, which is supposed to hammer home a unified tourism theme for years.

Maybe, Van Offeren said.

The slogan will be tested in a $500,000 marketing campaign next year, including advertising and a 152-page, 400,000-copy magazine being produced jointly with the Ottawa County Visitors Bureau.

If the slogan is successful, it could be used for the next several years for a campaign costing millions of dollars. Additional bed tax money is expected to start flowing to the visitors bureau next year when the last expansion of U.S. 250 is finally paid off.

Erie County collects a 2 percent "bed tax" on hotel rooms to market tourism. The first 1 percent brought in $942,807 for the visitor bureau's 2005-2006 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, up 27 percent from 2004-2005. The second 1 percent is pledged to paying off the local share of U.S. 250's cost, but it will begin going to the visitors bureau sometime next year. The visitors bureau's annual budget this year is about $950,000.

Van Offeren said "Go Coast Ohio" is being dumped because some of the visitor bureau's member businesses believed it didn't offer a clear enough picture of what the Lake Erie coast has to offer.

"Islands, that sounds very tempting," Van Offeren said. "Obviously, the folks at Kelleys Island and Put-in-Bay are excited."

The visitors bureau has a tourism site at www.gocoastohio.com, but Web sites are being set up to push the theme, including at LakeErieShoresandIslands.com, ShoresandIslands.com and LakeErieGetaway.com.

Van Offeren's written report submitted to the commissioners shows the Internet continues to grow as a way for prospective visitors to examine north central Ohio. Web site visits went up 36 percent from the 2004-2005 fiscal year to the just-completed one, but phone calls and personal visits to the visitors bureau, 4424 Milan Road, have continued to drop.

The visitors bureau is considering whether to push for Ohio schools to begin classes after Labor Day and continues to put more emphasis on bringing visitors to the Sandusky area in winter to use the new indoor water parks.

Michigan moved the start of school to after Labor Day by trimming Christmas vacations, and the move helped bring Michigan families to Cedar Point in late August, she said. The Ohio tourism industry is looking at whether to push for a similar calendar change in Ohio, Van Offeren said.

Van Offeren said the visitor bureau's marketing committee will be asked to approve a new winter campaign soon.

One possible element is that visitors to Weather.com on the Internet and cable TV viewers in selected markets watching the Weather Channel will see a message crawling across their screens saying, "It's always 86 degrees in Sandusky ... the Waterpark Capital of Ohio."

Last year, the visitors bureau's winter offensive targeted families in Columbus. Columbus has water parks of its own now, so the visitors bureau is considering targeting the Akron-Canton area in Ohio and southeast Michigan.

FunCoast.com is your online guide to summer fun for Cedar Point, the LakeErie Islands and Sandusky area. Our site offers up-to-date information on area attractions, restaurants, hotels, gasoline prices, ferry schedules, swimming, birding and fishing, along with a complete listing of events happening in the Sandusky/Cedar Point area. To use our Webcam and zoom in on Cedar Point's rollercoasters, go to http://funcam.funcoast.com

Copyright 2006 the Sandusky Register. All rights reserved.

All materials contained on this site are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of the Sandusky Register or FunCoast.com. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.