Office of Tourism staffers meet with County

    CARIBOU — The last week in November is typically not a busy tourist time in Aroostook County. Deer hunting, for the most part, is done, there isn’t snow for snowmobilers and skiers and the leaves have long since turned and dropped from the trees. That doesn’t mean folks in the tourism industry aren’t still hard at work though.
    Representatives from Wytopitlock to Fort Kent gathered at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center Thursday to get an update on activity and marketing efforts of the Maine Office of Tourism (MOT). MOT Director Carolann Ouellete kicked off the morning meeting by outlining her department and its goals.
Contributed photo/Jon Gulliver, NMDC
MEETING — Maine Office of Tourism Director Carolann Ouellette, left, addresses about 30 tourism officials from all over Aroostook County at their “On the Road” regional visit to the area, held Nov. 29 at the Caribou Inn and Convention Center.
    “We want to bring more visitors into the state and encourage deeper excursions into Maine,” said Ouellette. “We also want to convert aspirations to visitations. We can see on Facebook that many people have a visit to Maine on their bucket list and if we can just get 2 percent to actually come to Maine we will be so far ahead of the game.”
    Ouellette also said her department is looking at acquisition and retention. Retention is the easier part with 86 percent of those who visit the state making a return trip. “So our job is to increase the first time visitation to the state so we are going to focus a lot on acquisition but not forget about retention,” she said.
    MOT staff also discussed a relatively new marketing campaign which features real people with real advice. The Maine Insiders can be found on the website www.visitmaine.com. MOT has gathered a group of individuals who are filled with unique insights, and have completed their own rite of passage to become a Maine Insider. According to the website, they understand the ins and outs of all that Maine has to offer – the kinds of people and places a local would know.
    Other specific topics at the meeting included updates on the Maine Birding Trail, Explore Maine by Bicycle Guides, Maine Nature-Based Tourism and group tour and travel shows.
    The Maine Office of Tourism “On the Road” regional visits are structured not only to connect with and inform tourism businesses and organizations in the eight tourism regions about the activities of the Office of Tourism, but also to provide a forum for those businesses and organizations to connect with MOT, meet the staff, discuss what’s new, opportunities, challenges and other tourism related areas of interest.
    Leslie Jackson, the regional tourism developer for the Northern Maine Development Commission, said the question and answer session at the end of the presentation brought several of the local concerns, such as not focusing enough on traditional activities like hunting and fishing, or certain regions of the state get more attention than the County, to the attention of MOT staff.
    “It’s good to have people critique or criticize, because that’s where they get their ideas,” said Jackson. “They left here with some great ideas on how to do things a little differently and I think that was one of their goals and ours.”
    “It was great to have the Office of Tourism come up to the County and listen to our businesses and communities,” said St. Agatha Town Manager Christy Sirois. “Their new campaign and approach to bring people to Maine seems very engaging and exciting with fresh ideas. Tourism is a very important part of the Aroostook County economy. Anything they can do to help increase tourism in the County is great.”
    Ouellette said Aroostook County is going to be well represented in the next edition of “Maine Invites You.” The 2013 version of the Maine Tourism Association visitor’s guide, which will be out at the end of December, will have feature stories on snowmobiling, the upcoming World Acadian Congress and other events important to the region.