What Your Local Tourism Team Wishes They Could Tell You

Almost every community has some kind of tourism entity: a convention and visitors bureau, economic development, chamber of commerce, or Main Street organization. They each function a little differently as well, but all with one goal in mind - celebrating the good things that are happening and sharing it with people all over the state and around the country.

If you don't know who those people are in your city, take a minute now to do a little research and come right back. I'll wait.

In my case, I run a 501(c)6 nonprofit that uses its portion of the city's hotel/motel tax to use for the visitor center, marketing, event sponsorships, and advertising our local businesses to travelers outside our state. From visitor guides to digital advertisements to event emails to the Radar O'Reilly interactive exhibit, everything we do encourages visitors to come spend time in our county, getting to know our people and our story.

In your town, you have a group of economic development experts who are dedicated to bringing in people from outside the community to experience your local attractions. While I don't speak for your tourism team, I have an idea of what they might say if you had a conversation about visitors in your community.

* Every city has something visitors would enjoy seeing, doing, or eating. If you ask us, we can rattle off a three-day-weekend itinerary that includes a little bit of everything. You might even want to do it all yourself...

* Please keep your negativity to yourself. It's so easy to complain to your friends or on social media about how terrible things are, but that makes our job twice as hard. Not only are we trying to be creative and share the coolest parts of our hometown, we now have to combat the negativity that's pouring in. Visitors are looking at that kind of thing.

* We don't love our community because we get paid to. Tourism professionals don't get into the industry for the money to begin with - we genuinely enjoy everything there is here. Storytelling comes naturally when we're showing off our favorite attractions, restaurants, and stores.

* Every dollar we spend is an investment in you. The more people who come to town means more money spent, which means more tax dollars, which means less burden on local taxpayers. The more people we can share our community's story with, the more people will come check it out, eat in our restaurants, and shop in our stores. The money we spend is with you in mind.

* We'd love to give you some good stories to share when you meet visitors in your hometown. We often hear about locals saying there's "nothing to do here," but our tourism offices are way too busy for there to be nothing going on. If you'd like some recommendations and starter conversations ... ask us!

Hopefully these nuggets will help you think differently about visitors in your community, maybe for the first time! When you see people you don't recognize on Main Street, in the diner, or at a concert, take a moment to find out where they're from. You might be surprised at the places people are traveling from to meet you and your city.