Tourism director pays visit to Platte Valley

Wyoming's head of tourism did some traveling herself last week.

Diane Shober, the Executive Director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism, visited Saratoga community members at Sweet Marie's on Oct. 29. Shober said her visit was a part of an outreach with stakeholders in the state-run Wyoming Office of Tourism. Representatives of the Carbon County Visitors Council were also in attendance.

The Wyoming Office of Tourism is the only state-wide organization dedicated to growing the state's tourism economy. Shober said her office targets out-of-state residents through a variety of advertising formats.

"All of our efforts are deployed in markets outside of Wyoming," Shober said, "and it's to create awareness about Wyoming becoming a vacation destination."

Many of their ad campaigns are geo-targeted towards the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountain region. Shober said market areas like Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake and Seattle have been the primary campaign targets.

Also, smaller markets, such as western Nebraska, southern Idaho, eastern South Dakota and eastern Montana are targets of their advertising campaign. Shober said they feel they can reach more people with spending less money by promoting Wyoming in smaller markets.

"Our budget dictates where we go," Shober said. "Markets like Los Angles would be fabulous, but media there is expensive, and our entire budget would have to be dedicated to that one market."

While the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone are major draws to the state, it does little to help business in Carbon County. But Shober said their campaigns focus selling the experience of a vacation. The iconic areas of the state can draw attention to the state, but the hope is people will explore other areas of the state while on vacation.

"There is something everywhere in Wyoming for everyone," Shober said.

According to the Wyoming Office of Tourism, Wyoming saw 9.07 million overnight visitors which resulted in $3.2 billion in direct expenditures. The tourism industry supports nearly 30,000 jobs in the Equality State, which is approximately 12 percent of all jobs in the state.

For every dollar the Wyoming Office of Tourism spent on advertising, $5.51 was returned in state sales tax revenues.

"When a tourism economy grows, infrastructure and entities do not have the same burdens as other growth industries," Shober explained. "You don't have to invest education or the health care of visitors as you would with other industries."

To learn more about the Wyoming Office of Tourism, head to http://www.wyomingofficeoftourism.gov.