You Can Help Plan Out The 2013 Tourism Season

Montana residents are invited to share their thoughts and ideas on the priorities, actions and goals that will continue Montana’s tourism success over the next five years.

Date: Tuesday, October 30

Times: 9 - 11 am

Where: Bozeman Chamber of Commerce, 2000 Commerce Way, Bozeman

Registration is requested: Please go to the 2013 Strategic Plan web page to register

The Governor-appointed Montana Tourism Advisory Council and the Montana Office of Tourism are sponsoring the meetings. In a joint statement, Cyndy Andrus, Tourism Advisory Council Chair, and Jeri Duran, Montana Office of Tourism Administrator, expressed the importance of individual, organization, and community involvement in this planning process:

“Montana has been enjoying steady growth in non-resident visitation and visitor spending over recent years (10.5 million visitors and $2.7 billion in spending in 2011). We’ve been leading the nation in summer hotel occupancy rates. The Montana Brand and our targeted marketing are working. An important element of our success is the collaboration and partnership among the tourism and recreation industry statewide, a relationship that’s been encouraged and enhanced by the last two statewide strategic plans. We want to continue Montana’s success with the ideas and direction provided by Montanans through this next statewide planning process.”

The community input sessions will ask participants to share what their tourism business or organization wants to accomplish in the coming five years, how those goals fit in with the shared goals of the statewide tourism industry to build on the Montana Brand pillars through Product, Marketing and Respect, and how the strategic plan can serve as a useful tool in reaching those individual and shared goals.

The input session facilitators, Julie & Jim Cerenzia of Open Window Consulting of Bozeman, have planned for each session to last two hours, but they will have three hours available to ensure that discussion on the priority strategies and actions for Montana’s tourism will not be cut short.

In addition to the community input sessions being held across Montana in October and early November, anyone interested can provide input through an on-line survey available on the Montana Tourism & Recreation Strategic Plan webpage –