FRENCHVILLE, Maine — May 8, 2024 — Jacob Pelkey, tourism developer for the Aroostook County Tourism Authority, speaks at the Tourism Summit held May 8 at the Frenchville Community Center. Give a presentation on how is being marketed as a travel destination. (Chris Bouchard | St. John Valley Times)
FRENCHVILLE, Maine – Aroostook County is seeing an increase in tourism and spending in the area thanks to organizations actively promoting the area as a seasonal destination.
The Aroostook County Tourism Authority, a marketing organization, demonstrated at an all-day tourism summit Wednesday how it promotes the county to potential visitors from within and outside of Maine.
Dozens of community and business leaders packed into the Frenchville Community Center for the summit, which featured presentations from several organizations across the state and region.
ACT is a standing committee of the Northern Maine Development Commission focused on improving the local economy through tourism marketing and promotion. Designated by the Maine Department of Tourism to promote and market the area.
Summit attendees learned that marketing appears to be working. According to data shared by MOT Deputy Director Hannah Collins, visitors to Aroostook County in 2023 will receive 169.59 million yen directly in accommodation, transportation, groceries, restaurants, shopping, entertainment and other expenses. Spent $9,300, an increase of 5.5% from 2022. The county received 332,400 visitors last year, an increase of 17.4% from the previous year.
One attendee asked Collins if there were any plans to involve online influencers in local marketing. She said she is working on finding skilled snowmobilers in the area who can take photos and post them on Instagram.
Another guest asked how he could compile all this data for his annual report. Collins said that to collect much of the information about visitors, they conduct intercept surveys that collect on-site information from visitors.
“We have a whole team,” she said. “They work 12 months out of the year to capture all the data, and they supplement it with a little bit of online research.”
ACT Tourism Developer Jacob Pelkey gave a presentation and explained how he and other members of the committee are working to promote the region. Pelkey said the region promotes four seasons: early winter, late winter, early summer and late summer. Then during each period he promotes 6 activities.
“For example, we’re in early summer right now,” Pelkey said. “So most of the advertising is already up and running. We’re going to promote trout fishing, high water paddling, and agritourism. We just had maple syrup on Sunday.”
Some summer activities, like ATVing, fall into the late summer category because the trails aren’t dry enough yet.
Pelkey said it’s important to promote Aroostook County as a unique part of the state. He said that while Maine may be known for foods like lobster, blueberries and red hot dogs, these are not the things people actually associate with Maine. He said foods unique to the county include potatoes, potato candy, fiddleheads, ploy and poutine.
I then gave an example of how for certain activities, such as golf, you often need to create a marketing plan several weeks in advance.
He said on average it takes about six weeks for someone to make plans to come to the county. So if you’re marketing golf, you’ll start by posting golf photos and then add a link to his website for the Aroostook County Tourism Office. This is followed by a golf video and finally a link to the golf event.
Showing this content multiple times helps foster the idea that people will return to the area repeatedly, Pelkey said. Splitting information into multiple parts makes content easier to understand, he said.
He concluded by telling businesses and community leaders in the audience that if they would like to promote their upcoming events, they can reach out to them directly through email or Facebook messages. Looking to the future, he said ACT plans to revamp the way it publishes its content online, including building a new website that will be launched soon.
The tourism summit also featured presentations from the Maine Snowmobile Association, Northern Maine Development Commission, MaineDOT, and ATV Maine.
