Heritage Route tourism efforts show good return

by Angie Asam, Staff Writer

The Huron Shores Heritage Route, encouraging people to come up north via U.S. 23 rather than I-75, has been putting a lot of effort into promotion of the six county area. This includes a summer and fall campaign with Pure Michigan and the development of a Web site which contains more than 1,400 inventoried assets within the six-county region. From April 1 through the end of October, the area Web sites saw an increase in inquiries of 109 percent as compared to the same time period in 2009. Fall numbers were up as well but were not as impressive as they improved just 40 percent, but still an increase. Through the campaigns, Grand Rapids and Lansing became the top visiting cities and Chicago became a top city for visitors as well to the area.

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After such a successful campaign in not only including the exposure the region got, but including major increases in visits to the Rogers City Web site, the management council is beginning to plan for what to do next. The Presque Isle County committee for the route will be reviewing the management plan to see how they can adopt it into a countywide recreation plan. Partners in the project the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments (NEMCOG) and Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) are working with the council to have the highway designated as a scenic byway.

Moving forward, the heritage route Web site will direct visitors not only to the Rogers City Web site, which was used as a partner as they were the only ones with a functional site at the time, but to direct them to the Presque Isle County visitor information site by the County Development Commission (www.presqueislemi.org) and the new county site that is currently being developed. The heritage route management council will continue working on the regional effort trying to increase tourism to the area and ultimately to try to get people here to stay.

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