The Let’s Minocqua Visitors Bureau is now the Greater Minocqua Area Visitors Bureau.
It supports businesses and the tourism industry in Minocqua, Arbor Vitae, Woodruff, and Hazelhurst.
President and CEO Krystal Westfahl says they did a brand perception study ahead of the change.
“What we found out through that brand perception study is the word Minocqua is synonymous with Northwoods, or Up North, for them. And quite frankly, they don't know where Minocqua begins and ends,” said Westfahl.
Westfahl says they’ve hired two additional staff persons in the last year to get staffing back to full.
Part of the work of Minocqua Area Visitors Bureau is making sure visitors know about all the different communities and what each one has to offer.
“Once they got to their ‘Minocqua area’ wherever that may be, now we can actually tell them, ‘Okay, well, actually, this is in this community, and why this community is so great,’ or ‘You're in this community and they have this type of amenity or attraction that you should be checking out.’ We can start to differentiate for them what the area means and what it means to the locals by using the hook,” said Westfahl.
Work will also continue to maintain the strong tourism industry.
Visitors spent nearly $292 million in Oneida County in 2023, an increase of 4.5% over 2022.
“We get them here, we make sure that they're enjoying themselves, give them their Northwoods authentic experience, and then hopefully they go and tell others about it and bring new people back,” said Westfahl. “It's this beautiful cycle that we see with this room tax funding is we get them here, they do their things, they go home. We use that funding that they provided to us, and we hopefully remarket to them and their friends and bring them back.”
Room tax from lodgings in Minocqua, Woodruff, Arbor Vitae, and Hazelhurst go into this effort.
While tourism remains strong, Westfahl says they’re focused on future challenges.
One of those challenges is making sure tourism remains a positive thing for the local communities.
“Tourism can be detrimentally impactful, and other communities have seen that in the past, and so we definitely don't want to get to a place where we see the travel and tourism as a detriment,” said Westfahl. “Right now, obviously, it is our main economy, and we need to keep that strong. But these are the conversations, as a destination steward, that we need to be aware of.”
Climate change is another challenge facing the tourism industry.
Things like lack of snowfall and drought lowering lake levels can impact tourism.
“Those are things that are kind of outside of our parameters of control, but what we can control is making sure that our voice is strong, that we have opportunities to attract people here, regardless of whether it's snowing or raining or sunny, and that we are trying to, you know, really make ourselves sort of climate change resilient,” said Westfahl. “That is a big push for us, is to really talk about how we can impact tourism for years to come, depending on those shifts in weather and how we're going to tackle that.”
