Promoting Weston County

Promoting Weston County

To the Editor:

This letter is in response to your article titled “UW tourism survey: Weston County vastly undermarketed.”

The student study pointed to what the Weston County Travel Commission has been dealing with for years. These are underfunding, lack of interest, and negativity from the public. We do not have destinations or major events to promote. We build on the community and individuals with the fortitude to manage events from year to year. We assist in advertising and funding when it fits into our mandate to do so. 

We have and are increasing our promotion of trails, outdoor recreations, rodeos, RPM Days, Madness on Main and everyone that puts in with our funding. That includes the chambers of commerce in Newcastle and Upton. They both receive thousands of dollars yearly to promote businesses. We fund beautification with volunteer groups in both towns. We have done billboards, printed materials, online websites and more. 

I read the article and then called Dan McCoy, director of the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, and talked about the class project on tourism. McCoy’s contact information is 307-766-5009 and email is dan.mccoy@wyo.edu. Then I watched the Zoom meeting of the presentation. The students were here for half a day and talked to few people. They ate at WayBack Burgers and visited the Anna Miller Museum. When the written presentation and suggestions are available McCoy will be sending WCTC a copy. The travel commission wants to use this to build onto our program of tourism promotion.

We are a group of volunteers helping the community grow. We want people to come to our meeting. We welcome positive input and interaction to help us. 

Weston County is not vastly under marketed and the students did not say that. What they did say was the tourism season has not started and places were closed. There seems to be a lack of knowledge of tourism from the locals and some things can be marketed more, and the importance of the lodging tax to do that. The students visited four counties and the class visited the State of Wyoming. There is room for improvement in every county, not just Weston, and the travel commission will be looking at those things. 

— Bruce Perkins,

Weston County Travel Commission

Editor’s note: A link to the presentation can be found at newslj.com/content/uw-tourism-survey-weston-county-vastly-undermarketed.