I have
worn a lot of hats these past couple of weeks. I’m not looking for a pat on the
back, (more likely you would just circle your temple with your index finger).
But my quest this week is to remind our readers that there are many things to
do in our own backyard. Tourism isn’t just fishing tournaments and casinos,
tourism is people from other towns visiting our town, spending their money here
and helping our economy through the sales tax revenue and income to our local
merchants. These visitors are tourists, whether they come in for the casinos,
tournaments, a visit to Har-Ber Village, shop in a store, or attend a church
service and go to lunch afterwards.
Why am I
bringing this up? Because it makes me sad when our locals say there isn’t
anything to do. Just in these last few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to
perform, speak, educate and entertain for over 2,000 people at various events. I know, the number surprised me, too, but I
did the math. From performing comedy shows, to baby showers, to conferences, to
murder mysteries: all of these events get people off their Lazy Boy to do
something. There were locals, and there were those that drove a few hours to be
here. They buy gasoline, meals, and out-of-towners pay for lodging. Ka-ching!
goes the city coffers.
There
were many other things going on that I wasn’t involved in, or perhaps I wasn’t
aware. More Ka-ching! This certainly helps green-up Green
Country. Where do you find out about
events? And then do you share that information with others that might be
interested? For these different presentations I have been
involved with, there have been huge newspaper ads. There have been posters in
businesses and store front windows. I went to Tulsa to do a TV interview to
advertise an upcoming event here on Grand Lake. We have been on the local
radio. We have blasted emails and Facebook.
A couple of events did a direct mail invitation. So you can understand
my surprise when visiting with many individuals in our community, they knew
nothing about these wonderful, fun opportunities in their own backyard! Maybe there is too much to do, and things get
lost in the bombardment of information.
I would
like to encourage all of us to share information with others. Make it a habit
to cut out notices from the paper and post on work place bulletin boards. Tell
employees about activities happening in the area, especially if these people are
in the position to greet out-of-town visitors. Make it a point to get the
Chamber of Commerce Weekly happening. Be in the know and pass it on!
We don’t
all have the same leisure time interests, but there are loads of us who would
like to experience different things that might interest us. How do we attend
your function if we don’t know about it? We might be surprised how all our
affairs might benefit if we just make a tiny effort to share information with
one another.
Marketing,
another hat to wear.
