Marketing Rural Tourism

Central Illinois
lady on a zip line
Event Date(s)
Event Time
-
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Location
Elmwood Junior & Senior High School
County
Fulton
Mason
Peoria
Tazewell
Woodford
Knox
Stark
Marshall
Henry
Register

Program Audience

Members of tourism organizations and their volunteers as well as anyone interested in learning how to market their local and regional tourist attractions and recreational assets


Program Description

Rural tourism activities have been shown to foster local entrepreneurship, reverse the outmigration of young adults, provide local workforce opportunities and expand economic opportunities in rural communities.  Furthermore, a recent study (White, 2023), indicates that “recreation-dependent counties grew more than twice as fast as the nation overall and the Midwest’s recreation counties mirrored this trend”. 
 

Program Presenters

Pam Schallhorn, Extension Specialist in Community and Economic Development will discuss ways to create effective tourism marketing campaigns that reach different generations as well as insights into identifying target markets and the importance of digital marketing.

Richard Proffer, Extension Educator in community & economic development will introduce a recent study completed by the University of Illinois and Illinois Extension: I-Rural: Reimagining Illinois Rural Tourism. Resources being made available that night will include the rural tourism toolkit that allows communities and organizations to better understand and promote their communities as well as an updated grant resource guide.  

 

I-Rural: Reimagining Illinois Rural Tourism Through Community and Extension Collaboration:  The project’s goal was to develop tools to plan, develop and implement rural tourism projects with evidence-informed processes that support local entrepreneurship, foster collaboration, and develop local workforce opportunities.  The project was led by Joelle Soulard, Ph.D., and Sharon Zou, Ph.D., both professors in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois.
If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate, please contact
Pam Schallhorn
Keywords
Community Development
Economic Development
Workforce Development
Program Areas
Community & Economic Development