Aroostook

“Drive past the potato fields of the St. John Valley in northernmost Maine …” begins a two-page article in the June 29th issue of the New York Times that focuses on the St. John Valley and its Acadian culture. Publicity like this is something that we as a region need, but cannot afford to purchase. One way to get this type of publicity is to conduct Familiarization Tours or “Fam Trips,” that bring the writer and photographer into our area to get the scoop on the stories that they can sell to periodicals to earn their living. The region in turn gets the press of those stories that have been placed.
To encourage more publicity like in the New York Times, Aroostook County Tourism (ACT) played host on June 21-24 to a freelance writer and photographer to show them the best that Aroostook County has to offer. On this trip, our writer and photographer experienced cultural and historic attractions in Patten, Oakfield, Smyrna, Houlton, Littleton, Caribou, New Sweden, Van Buren, Lille, Madawaska and Fort Kent. They sat in one of our great railroad museums with a retired railroad man of 40 years, visited the top of Mars Hill Mountain, New Sweden’s Midsommar Festival and the 10th Mountain Lodge in Fort Kent. They ate meals in our restaurants experiencing for the first time ployes and “flat clam” patties. They stayed in some of our best lodging facilities located throughout the region and were greeted in each town by some of the best volunteers and community leaders.
The people that made this trip so successful need to be commended. I only wish I could name each of them here.
How successful was this trip? We do not know yet. However, if one major publication picks up and runs one story, Aroostook County will have purchased some inexpensive advertising.
In any marketing effort, the challenge of maximizing the effectiveness of your advertising budget can be very difficult. ACT is able to stretch their marketing dollars by conducting “Fam Trips”. If you are a tourism-based business owner and would be interested to learn more about how to organize your own “Fam Trip,” please do not hesitate to contact me.
There are writers out there wondering what their next story will be about, maybe it could be about you.
   David Spooner is the business and tourism development specialist with the Northern Maine Development Commission in Caribou. He can be reached by phone at 498-8736 or online at dspooner@nmdc.org