Thursday Belanger organized a meeting in the county courthouse with Ken Yarsevich of Travel Michigan along with community leaders and business people from the area. This year will mark the third campaign of the “Sunrise Coast” as a featured destination on Michigan’s official travel and tourism site. Being a featured destination, the Heritage Route, which includes AuGres, East Tawas, Oscoda, Harrisville, Alpena, Rogers City and Cheboygan, gives visitors one- click access to all the wonderful things northern Michigan has to offer.

The campaign also has allowed radio and television ads to air promoting the entire six county area. The Rogers City (www.rogerscity.com) Web site is now in the top five for hits because of being listed as a featured destination. Throughout the six-county area, local governments have committed money to the campaign, which is more than matched to feature the area.

Yarsevich was invited to communicate, to the stakeholders in the campaign, the importance of the regional effort to promote tourism to the area. Yarsevich recommended that tourism/visitor packages, designed to create a unique experience for visitors, might be a next step for the campaign. Belanger, who is now the chairperson of the U.S.-23 Heritage Route Committee, said that before the campaign started, the area was seeing only day-trippers, visitors who were in the area for the day before moving on to a final destination. “Since the campaign has started, people are starting to spend more time in the area using our wonderful resources and visiting different locations in the area,” said Belanger. Belanger also focused on the amount of economic and tourism growth coming out of the many wonderful trails in the area along with the museums, lighthouses and of course the water.

As local governments continue to struggle with balancing budgets on little funding, the contributions made to the Pure Michigan campaign have given a great return on investment as more visitors come to the area to stay, eat and participate in activities. All which help stimulate the local economy. Yarsevich also stressed the importance of keeping Websites pertaining to the area up to date and getting those businesses or locations without a site to get one, as most travel planning is now done online.

“The meeting went very well. It was well attended and we had a good discussion with good interaction,” said Belanger. She also said that the county board of commissioners may invite Yarsevich to a future meeting for an update. -