Prowers County Lodging Tax Panel (PCLTP), in the Canyons and Plains travel region, was awarded a Colorado Rural Academny for Tourism (CRAFT) Recovery Mentor program by the Colorado Tourism Office in fall 2020 to advance recovery efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this CRAFT Recovery Mentor program was to engage with the Prowers County Lodging Tax Panel to develop an Advocacy and Community Engagement plan.
PCLTP promotes and develops tourism in Prowers County, Colorado for the social and economic prosperity of the residents and businesses of the community.
CRAFT Mentor Program Results
PCLTP was paired with Dave Santucci, a CRAFT Mentor with experience in rural tourism advocacy, destination marketing, stakeholder engagement and tourism product development to achieve the following outcomes:
- Development of an Advocacy and Community Engagement (ACE) Toolkit for Prowers County Lodging Tax Panel
- Development of a Messaging Matrix as a part of the ACE Toolkit that targets the three identified audiences for the advocacy messaging: government officials, residents and tourism-related businesses
- Collaborative development of the provided ACE calendar template with monthly or quarterly primary opportunities scheduled to build awareness of the value of tourism amongst the identified audiences
- Research to compile the top quantitative measures of tourism from national and state tourism and jobs reports. The results of the research is available in the “sources” tab of the ACE Toolkit
- Production of an interview with Sundance High Plains RV Park & Cabins, a local tourism-related business, for Prowers County Lodging Tax Panel to leverage as a qualitative measure for communicating the value of tourism. A transcript of the interview is available in the “Faces of Tourism” project deliverable
- Provided guidance to the PCLTP immediate next steps and long-term thinking for the group to build awareness of the value of tourism in Prowers County
"It has been a pleasure working with Dave Santucci via CRAFT and learning more about Prowers County Tourism. It was an eye opener regarding the amount of dollars spent by tourists traveling in and out of our area. We are hoping to capture more by putting our learning and planning to work." -Jane Felter, Chairman, Prowers County Lodging Panel
About CRAFT Mentor
The Colorado Tourism Office developed the Colorado Rural Academy for Tourism (CRAFT) to support communities across the state integrate tourism into their economic development strategies and develop new visitor experiences aimed at attracting increased traveler spending.
The CRAFT Recovery Mentor program provides up to 50 hours of mentoring for Colorado tourism partners to advance one or more tourism strategies that bolsters their response to a recent crisis or natural disaster.
Contact
Jane Felter
Prowers County Lodging Panel
3rdstnestbb@gmail.com