Photo by Tony Vasquez New Columbus Area Visitors Center Executive Director Misty Weisensteiner stands outside her office’s building.
Three months and dozens of ideas into her new job as executive director of the Columbus Area Visitors Center, Misty Weisensteiner plans to develop a new vision and strategic plan for the office to, as she put it, “to help better tell Columbus and Bartholomew County’s story.”
Telling that story effectively matters in part because, in a healthy tourism year, visitors to Bartholomew County pump some $300 million into the local economy, according to past visitors center estimates.
“We know that how we market and talk to travelers and visitors is ever changing and we have to stay on top of it through research and industry data” Weisensteiner said. “We have an opportunity to tell the story of the area in a more impactful, dynamic and effective way. But we need to ensure we are speaking the right language, to the right audience, when we represent Bartholomew County.”
So she is taking time with her staff to help formulate the right approach.
Erin Hawkins, the visitors center’s director of marketing, likes the idea of Weisensteiner seeing the promotional landscape with a new vision.
“We’re fortunate,” Hawkins said, “to have a new executive director with Misty’s experience and expertise to help guide us in strategies we haven’t undertaken previously.”
In the future, that strategic plan would lead to new research data.
“I really want at some point to invest in some market research to really understand who our visitor is,” Weisensteiner said, “what the visitor’s perception of Columbus is, and even what the local resident’s perception of Columbus is.”
Hawkins pointed out that the idea is a good one since she said she is unaware of any such study being undertaken anytime in recent history, including her decade with the center.
“We’re going to have to be creative,” Weisensteiner said.
Hawkins said she supports the idea of a new plan and new data.
“I think that the organization has grown a lot and done a lot of great things in the time that I’ve been here,” Hawkins said. “But taking a look at it with fresh eyes and I think also investing in actual research and real data is good. Sometimes we can assume that we know who our visitor is and what they want from our community.
“But we need the research to back it up and drive our decisions.”
Cindy Frey, president of Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce, already is a fan of the new, promotional leader.
“Misty has a reputation as a rock star leader,” Frey said. “She has a boatload of experience, loads of respect for the county as a top-notch destination, and a high dose of energy that can power her extremely talented team to take our community’s tourism marketing efforts forward.”
Weisensteiner wants to broaden the organization’s marketing approach to include a younger demographic to add to the city’s target audience without shortchanging other, previous demographics.
“The younger audience — generally the ones who don’t have a family quite yet — prioritizes travel and the weekend trips higher than tangible things or material stuff that they would buy,” she said. “They enjoy the experiences.”
Weisensteiner also would like to shine more of a spotlight on the areas around Columbus, including nearby Hope and Nashville, including the Brown County Music Center and its draw of nationally touring, big-name, Grammy-winning talent.
“Columbus is great, of course, but our surrounding counties and communities around Columbus are wonderful as well,” Weisensteiner said. “So we can find more ways to encourage them to make it more than a weekend or an extended weekend and see everything this whole region has to offer. And I think that’s something Erin and I have talked about is how do we showcase that even on our website, or talk about it in our marketing.”
Plus, the city’s growing sports stature impresses the new leader.
“The number of sporting events that Columbus attracts literally blows my mind,” she said, “and with NexusPark opening next year we’ll have opportunities to recruit non-sports events, such as tradeshows, to utilize the space as well.”
For more information
To learn more about the Columbus Area Visitors Center, visit columbus.in.us.
