Business

Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau reports rise in West Virginia tourism

VIENNA -- The Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau says West Virginia tourism has seen a significant increase in visits and revenue.

Thursday night's annual meeting of the CVB at Grand Pointe Conference Center in Vienna hosted over 60 attendees, ranging from local officials to business owners and tourism partners, according to Hannah Duffield, marketing coordinator at the Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Special guest speaker Chelsea Ruby, executive director of the W.Va. Tourism Office, said the Greater Parkersburg and Wood County Visitor Bureau contributes substantially to this success.

"When my team and I came in two years ago, tourism in West Virginia had seen four years of decline," Ruby said. "87 percent of visitors were return visitors," she said.

Ruby and her team are using the new "Almost Heaven" campaign to increase first-time visits to West Virginia. According to Ruby, the goal is to brand a "New W.Va." and reverse the negative stereotypes.

"Through research, we found that the song 'Country Roads" had a lot of brand equity so we purchased the song rights," Ruby said.

Through their research, state tourism officials also discovered that people love to see landscape shots that inspire a trip for folks to come to see the state themselves.

"Since the new campaign launched last year, website traffic has increased significantly, people are staying in West Virginia longer and more," Ruby said.

Ruby said there have been 192,000 clicks from WVTourism.com to partners websites.

"We have seen an increase in hotel stays, traffic and overnight stays at the West Virginia state parks," Ruby said.

The state Tourism Office has a co-op advertising program for its partners.

"Last year we had 63 partners and were able to collectively purchase $2.8 million in advertising," Ruby said.

According to Duffield, Greater Parkersburg also partnered with the state Tourism Office to purchase advertising.

"The way the ads work, is you tie your local ad with the state's ad and they work together to increase awareness," Duffield said.

"The West Virginia Tourism also has an unique opportunity called the W.Va. Explorer's Blog," she said.

The blog is written by people across the state; it highlights events, local businesses, the stories of people and what they are doing in the community.

A 2018 recap video is available at Visit Greater Parkersburg: https://vimeo.com/318836150/e5dffae5d3