Working Together to Promote DeKalb County by John Dersham

It always seems the best way to achieve the best results is to include as many people as possible working toward the same goal. Even the best ideas by one person are minute when others get involved to help make an idea reality. In promoting tourism in DeKalb County it requires a lot of networking. Networking is reaching out to grasp the talents of many people to help you achieve your own goals. Here is how we use this in DeKalb Tourism. We are involved intimately at multiple levels of tourism development, marketing and promotion. We are active with The Southeast Tourism Society whom promotes tourism in the 12 southeastern states. We draw from their strength and resources to aid us educationally on what is happening in tourism on the national and regional levels. They provide in depth research into travel trends that greatly aid us in our budgeting process and our marketing. This research provides the data we need to decide when and how to best spend our adverting dollars. Our next level of networking is with the State of Alabama Tourism Department. They show us how they will promote the state and how DeKalb County fits into their advertising plan. We attend their quarterly meetings and through this we better understand how to manage DeKalb Tourism. Our next partner is Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association. This is a dynamic organization that promotes tourism in the northern 16 counties of Alabama. We here in DeKalb County are greatly enhanced by their work. We very specifically maximize their advertising plan to aid us. We, with a smaller budget than they, fill in the advertising gaps with DeKalb specific ads. The last level of tourism networking is in our own county and the many levels of businesses that make all or part of their income from tourism. These individuals through both advertising and verbal links help promote tourism to DeKalb County. Word of mouth advertising is very important to us and very successful in our area. We have an extremely high return rate among visitors. This means once people have come here they will return. The reason they return is due to the good experience they had when here. This means we treated them well and they like what they saw and did. People are friendly and helpful in our area which provides the best word of mouth advertising possible. Groups like the Fort Payne and Rainsville Chamber of Commerce’s greatly help promote DeKalb through their network of members. The Mentone Area Preservation Association and Mentone Area Arts Council play a big role as does the Big Wills Arts Council in Fort Payne. The Lookout Mountain Parkway Association and cities of Fort Payne and Rainsville promote tourism to our area as does the very active tourism oriented business owners in Mentone. A great example of this is with Doreen Crow Waters of Crow’s Nest Antiques, she started a Mentone Area Tourist Information Facebook page. She captures information from the community. Locals can make entrees about what is going on in Mentone. This helps us at DeKalb Tourism too because if we find something on her page that we did not know then we can add it to our ongoing Calendar of Events. Our success here at DeKalb Tourism is only as good as the great people resources we have all around us. Thanks to everyone for your help.