[Anchor intro: Nationally, the poor economy has hurt tourism. But in Syracuse, tourism is increasing. Democracywise reporter Crystal Barkely tells us why.]
In the past year, Syracuse has been able to keep draw more tourists — despite the weak economy. David Holder is the president of the Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau. Holder says the increase is significant.
“So, overall travel is up. It’s up between 8 and 11 percent.”
(David Holder, president of Syracuse Convention and Visitor’s Bureau)
The Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau gauges travel from several different standpoints. It looks at overall travel, travel to Syracuse and travel to conference and sporting events. According to Holder, the biggest increase has been in leisure travel.
“Really, one of the areas where we’ve seen a pretty significant increase is in terms of retail shopping. We’re seeing a lot more people come down from Canada to shop at places like Armory Square, Skaneateles or the Carousel Center.”
(David Holder)
So why is tourism to Syracuse up while overall tourism in the U.S. is down? Holder credits two factors for the increase:
“A large part of that is due to the improving economy. But another part of that is due to Syracuse’s general location. We typically do not go down as much as the rest of the state in terms of travel because we’re centrally located and that makes it easier for people to get here.”
(David Holder)
The Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau also has a marketing program. According to Holder, the program focuses on social media.
“We’ve got a large piece of our promotion in the social media marketplace and in public relations. So we’re working with media contacts to push the message out there. We’re really kind of embracing the social media marketplace to really let other people, let our social media contacts drive our message out there for us.”
(David Holder)
The Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Bureau spend a great deal of time and resources promoting travel to Syracuse. The travel search website Kayak.com reported, as of December 1, a 2.9-percent increase in travel to Syracuse in the last three months. The Visitors Bureau said it is because of their promotions. Danica Bryant is the communications manager for the Visitors Bureau. Bryant says the bureau uses more tools than social media.
“We work with different hotels in Onondaga County and partner the hotel overnight package with some kind of attraction and ticket in the Syracuse area.”
(Danica Bryant, communications manager for the Visitor’s Bureau)
Bryant said the bureau has another promotional tool.
“We continuously travel to Ottawa and do what we call media blitzes which is going around to different media outlets and talking about different reasons to visit Syracuse.”
(Danica Bryant)
Another part of the success of bringing travel to Syracuse is where the promotions are targeted. Bryant says the bureau targets markets close to Syracuse, especially in Canada.
“The Ottawa region specifically. It’s a three-hour drive down Route 81. It’s very easy and it is one of our powerful target markets. We also reach out to Albany and Buffalo because those are also within a two-, three-hour drive.”
(Danica Bryant)
Reporting for Democracywise, I’m Crystal Barkley.
(Crystal Barkley is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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