The Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau expects to have a clearer idea of how to market the city and county by the end of the month.
Young Strategies Inc., a destination research and strategic planning firm based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, began a survey March 30 that was sent to more than 150 event organizers, community leaders and public officials.
The DestinationNext survey is a 90-question assessment of surveyors’ perspectives on the area’s strengths and weaknesses in 24 categories to help the CVB develop marketing strategies for the next five years, said Berkeley Young, the firm’s president.
Those categories include things like health care, attractions and experiences, local mobility and outdoor recreation.
“The questions are the same type of questions that are asked in cities all over the country,” Young said. “It’s all about the city as a destination. Do we have adequate transportation to the city? Do we have adequate highways? … Do we have adequate lodging, dining, shopping, meeting facilities (and) team sports facilities?”
Young Strategies will collect the data by April 24, then analyze it and present its findings at the CVB’s April 30 board meeting to help brainstorm ideas for improving the city as a tourism and travel destination.
The questions in the survey are a mix of short-answer essays and scaled responses, asking participants to rate statements about the city and county from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
“We bring the responses to all these questions to (the CVB), and then they’ll identify what are the priority things that they want to work on and go after because you can’t be all things to all people,” Young said. “And so, we have to look at the response data and look at how Columbus fits competitively within Mississippi and Alabama and the communities around it, and where are the areas that Columbus should invest over the next five years.”
Frances Glenn, tourism director for CVB, said the results of the survey will be instrumental in informing marketing decisions for the board over the next year and beyond.
“It’ll help us plan moving forward,” Glenn said. “We’ll see what has worked in the things that we have done and (get) a general idea of what our assets are in the community and how we can make the most of them.”
Young said some recommendations from the survey could include increased marketing or event planning for existing features like the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway for additional fishing tournaments or the Trotter Convention Center for events like weddings and business conferences.
“It all comes down to the community’s desire to host it and the economic impact of it,” Young said. “… And this form of economic development, it’s got a quick return on investment because you put out a social media campaign or an ad campaign, and people start visiting almost immediately. Most people make their plans at the last minute to go somewhere. And an ad campaign that runs this month will be putting heads in beds and bringing people to town within the month.”
Young said this survey is being conducted alongside an inventory of 16 local hotels. Over the same timeframe as the survey, Young said the firm has sent a general questionnaire to local hotels to determine occupancy, booking trends and capacity to see how those hotel rates have lined up with past events.
Before this survey was conducted Glenn said there hasn’t been as clear of an indicator about visitors staying in Columbus apart from monthly hotel tax figures.
With a clearer idea of where visitors are coming from, Glenn said there’s potential to more effectively target future marketing campaigns and potentially bring even more visitors to the area.
“It’ll kind of give us (an idea) … who our visitors are,” Glenn said. “We know the visitors are coming, but who are they and why they’re here.”
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