2011 Tourism Showcase Spotlights Online Possibilities

The 2011 Tourism Showcase this week in Casper gave local folks in the industry a look at what's new in the marketing of Wyoming to a world full of travelers.

Listen here,

Tourism is our number 2 source of revenue in Wyoming and last year visitors spent about $2.6 billion for goods and services across the state. Those tourism dollars, in turn, amounted to about $108 million in local and state taxes, "and if it weren't for that $108 million in local and state tax revenues the average household in Wyoming would have paid an additional five hundred and ten dollars in taxes."

Director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism, Diane Shober, says they refer to it as a form of tax relief. In Natrona County that offset amounts to about $300  for the average household.

Tuesday at the 2011 Casper Area Convention and Visitor's Bureau Tourism Showcase, Shober rolled out current plans for regional and national marketing and the spotlight was on-line where, Shober says, the possibilities have exploded, "Completely exploded. Technology has been, from a travel buying perspective,  the largest market segment, that's travel purchases on the Internet."

Aaron McCreight is our local travel and tourism director and he presented a new "Play Casper" campaign going out across the country that highlights an A to Z of sports possibilities for Casper and Natrona County and a FishCasper.com micro site that went live about three weeks ago. The site includes a Fishing Wall of Fame, links to locally produced fishing YouTube videos, plus local fishing hole "secrets".

Click here to check out Casper's new fishing website,http://www.fishcasper.com/

Click here for the Wyoming Tourism office, http://www.wyomingofficeoftourism.gov/