On the web: www.VisitGreaterSpringfield.com
Springfield’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has retooled and relaunched its tourism website, with a stronger push to reach mobile users.
The retooled website, at www.VisitGreaterSpringfield.com, is part of a larger effort to overhaul the organization’s marketing materials, said Chris Schutte, director of marketing and the convention and visitor’s bureau for the Chamber of Greater Springfield. That has included developing a new visitor’s guide, adopting a new slogan last year and promoting area attractions in advertisements on city buses.
“It’s a piece of a much larger project,” Schutte said.
The CVB worked with local companies like Knoble Media in Springfield to help design the website. The site was distributed on a smaller scale to local businesses, who suggested minor improvements before the site was finalized for the general public, Schutte said.
“We were trying to make a tool that was the most useful for the traveler,” Schutte said.
Unlike the CVB’s previous site, the updated version was designed to work on mobile devices first, where Schutte said tourists are increasingly going to research potential travel destinations. It also promotes activities in other cities just outside Springfield, including the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, the Ohio Caverns near West Liberty and Young’s Jersey Dairy near Yellow Springs.
The idea is to attract travelers to Springfield overnight or for short day trips and branch out to surrounding counties from there, Schutte said. The CVB has been pushing to attract more visitors overall, as well as market the city as a destination for conventions and business training.
A report from Oxford Economics released last year showed tourism contributes about $368 million a year to Clark County’s economy.
One of the goals of the website, and the combined larger effort, is to make residents and visitors more aware of the attractions and activities that are available locally, Schutte said. Many residents take the region’s attractions for granted, or sometimes forget they are available, he added.
“We are attempting to change the perception of greater Springfield and the region,” Schutte said.
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