KINGSTON – Ulster County officials have revealed optimistic numbers regarding the county’s tourism industry amidst COVID. This resilience is being credited to their new branding strategies, according to the legislature’s Economic Development, Tourism, Housing and Planning Committee, along with their partner Cubic Creative Inc.
Tuesday evening, committee members and representatives from Cubic outlined data gathered from the “Seek for Yourself” campaign, which showed tourism unemployment down 2.3 percent, a much lower percentage than other regional areas, and lodging referrals increasing approximately 23 percent.
Those statistics were attributed to a variety of different multi-media advertising implementations and the strategy to capitalize on the county’s outdoor activities.
An influx of visitors from New York City, COVID restrictions on occupancy, indoor dining and travel have shown visitors are making shorter trips for the outdoor experiences the county has to offer.
Cubic’s Director of Digital Strategy and Media Nikki Schack said they pivoted their approach to reflect those developments, in turn lessening focus on other primary tourism markets.
“As we’ve shifted now, those additional markets have really taken a back seat and we’ve said, ‘Let’s wait and let’s focus on what is capable that can occur in our community during this time period,” said Schack. “We’ve really focused heavily on drive travel and as you can see, a lot of outdoor-centric messaging,” she said.
The increase in lodging, according to Cubic and Ulster County Director of Tourism Lisa Berger, was supported by a strategy of taking lodging providers linked to the county’s website and connecting them with a service called BookDirect, along with the social media site Pinterest, which was largely effective.
“Pushing for the places to pick up food and finding the variety of places that you might be able to stay, was very helpful locally as well as to business overall,” said Berger.
Moving forward, the committee and Ulster Tourism are looking to leverage their side of the river on the Walkway Over the Hudson to utilize that visitation, which has largely been going to Dutchess in terms of visitor money spent. They will possibly be working with Cubic Creative on setting up a satellite location on the west of the Hudson.
