June 2019

Summer has officially started! The days are longer, the sun shines brighter, and it’s what Minnesotans live for! I want to thank the Visit Cook County crew for rolling out the red carpet and showing us some amazing hospitality at our Education Summit the beginning of the month. Bluefin Bay was a perfect venue and North Shore Winery and Lutsen Mountains were a great opportunity for us to truly experience the North Shore!  Although our time was relatively short, we packed a lot of great content and networking in. Some take aways:

We heard from colleagues from around the state on ways to build partnerships. This included guerilla marketing, live marketing events, block parties, municipal event venues, niche marketing campaigns, multi community partnerships, utility partnerships, communication avenues, and community co-op marketing opportunities. It’s so refreshing to see the unique, innovative ways DMOs are sharing their message and relaying their value to key stakeholders and their community!

Our lobbying team, Todd Hill and Tony Kwilas were there to provide an overview of the session and approved legislation that will be affecting our industry. Although there were a few key issues that didn’t necessarily go the way we had hoped, it certainly could have been a lot worse. Our Public Policy committee will continue to work with Todd and Tony on some key initiatives in the next few months to prepare for next session.

We were fortunate to have such a great response rate from our industry for our compensation and benefits survey that we conducted. Dowell Management presented results of the survey, which was intended to capture industry standards as it relates to compensation and benefits.  Those that participated in the survey should have received an email link to access survey results. If you did not participate in the survey, you can purchase a copy of the results by contacting Dee Schutte at [email protected]

Some of our industry partners were on hand to share their knowledge and expertise on Digital Marketing and “The Customer Experience”. Both of these sessions provided some good insight on trends and opportunities to implement some new ideas and marketing tactics to increase exposure and customer satisfaction. MACVB continues to strive to advocate and advance the destination marketing industry in Minnesota. Please consider helping us do that through serving on a committee. The Public Policy, Education and Silent Auction committees are looking for volunteers, please contact Dee Schutte if you are interested in joining a committee. I want to personally thank everyone that attended the Education Summit. It’s always so refreshing to see how supportive and amazing our industry is.

-Stephanie Busiahn, 2019 Board Chair

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