Re: Trinity Tourism Website - 8/15/09
Folks:
Among several other initiatives, TEDC believes that one thing holding back the Trinity County economy is lack of an effective ‘web-presence’. Tourists increasingly rely upon the Internet as a source of information in planning trips and vacations. But Trinity businesses, for the most part:
· lack any website, or…
· have one…
o not up to current functional or aesthetic norms (and therefore unlikely to be ‘appreciated’ by potential customers), or…
o not maintained (i.e., kept up-to-date, customer email monitored, etc).
I have been hired by TEDC to develop a new website to be “a single point of internet reference for everything about this home we love, Trinity County. It will be a single portal to identify and enhance business opportunities here. As an economic assistance project, it will serve the tourism and recreation sectors, as well as all Trinity businesses and organizations which choose to take advantage of the direct assistance offered to all parts of the county.” The work will be accomplished by end of September 2009.
The actual site can be experienced at www.TrinityCounty.com/Visit. The site will evolve rapidly as development continues. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
The website development plan:
Step 1. Starting now: get the word out about what i'm doing and how folks can get involved.
Step 2. Starting soon: I’ll travel around all-the-county, taking photos, collecting info, and contacting just about every Tourism-Related Business (abbreviate: T.R.B.), to invite participation.
Step 3. Enter data to the website. From Step 2, i'll have enough to do a minimal page for every TRB, to include:
-Business name.
-Business Type (eg resort, convenience store, motel...).
-Location.
-A photograph.
-A short descriptive narrative.
-Contact info (email, phone, mailing address).
Step 4. Any TRB wanting more than that need only generate the 'content', and i'll include it into the structure. Examples of 'content': emailed text about the enterprise; a digital photograph; a brochure that I digitize; or a link to their existing website. This could occur before the end of September, or at anytime into the future.
Your support and assistance in this process will be so much appreciated!
On behalf of Trinity Economic Development Corporation and the Trinity County Chamber of Commerce…
Michael McMillan
HC1 Box 576, Trinity Center CA 96091
(530) 206-6098, m@AllThingsTrinity.us
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Appendix: QUESTIONS?
What does a businesses have to do to get a place on the website? Most likely, nothing. My intent is that almost-every tourism-related business in the entire county will have a place on the site, even if they do nothing to help.
What if a business doesn’t want to be there? I’ll delete it.
What will it cost to be on the site? Nothing.
Yeah right. But in the future? We can’t predict the future. But there is no plan for any future charge. TEDC is a non-profit corporation. TEDC’s goal is to improve the general economy of Trinity County by improving our area's Internet presence.
What will the site show for each business? Name, business type, location, a photograph, a short descriptive narrative, contact info. Also, a pop-up icon on an area map, something like this, but better.
I want something snazzier for my biz. If you’ll create your own actual webpages (in HTML), I’ll upload it to my site and link to it. You’ll save the cost of web-hosting.
What if i don’t like the page for my business? Make up something better & send it in. (‘Something better’ will need to be in the form of: emailed text; a digital photograph; or mail a brochure; or give me the link to an existing website.)
When will folks out there start seeing my business on the site? As soon as I put it up, i.e. within days of getting the info.
Will a Google Search turn up my business on the site? We can’t know. It is what we intend. I’ll run the site thru Google’s procedure to get it recognized. But the key idea is to have a general-Trinity-tourism site, attracting many viewers, generally drawing tourists to Trinity’s many attractions.
What’s a ‘Tourist-Related Business’? See the categories.
According to your categories, I’m not a ‘Tourist-Related Business’. If we get too much in there, it’s overwhelming, for the user and me. But I’ll try to provide a parallel site listing and sub-grouping all Trinity County businesses. Send me your info.
Will there be advertising on the site? We really haven't thought about it.