Nearly 200 tourism professionals and local organizations gathered at Visit Bucks County’s annual meeting last month. Sharon Rossi, VBC’s board chair, opened the meeting at the Terrain Gardens at DelVal, while Paul Bencivengo, president and COO of VBC, conveyed its support for the industry, including marketing and advocating on behalf of the organization’s 1,600 partners.
Kelly Keeling, senior research and destination development manager, reviewed VBC’s data and research, and the annual measurement of the economic impact of visitor spending in Bucks County. In 2022, the county welcomed 8 million visitors, generating $1.2 billion in economic impact and supporting a total hospitality workforce of more than 27,800 jobs. These key visitation and impact metrics show healthy year over year growth for the industry.
Keeling also highlighted Visit Bucks County’s ongoing partnership with the County of Bucks on the Bucks County Tourism Grant Program. Now in its 16th year, the program has distributed more than $6 million to over 120 hospitality organizations to support new projects and enhancements in marketing, special events, exhibits and product development.
While sharing the team’s efforts in the meetings and group markets this year, Lisa Paglaiccetti, VBC’s industry relations & visitor services director, announced that VBC has won the bid to host the Greater New Jersey Motorcoach Association’s Spring Association Meeting in April 2024.
Requests for Bucks County information continue to remain strong. VBC has fulfilled more than 24,000 printed Destination Guide requests this year.
VBC has increased sales efforts in the weddings, meeting and group tour markets, attending more than 40 tradeshows, events and wedding expos this year.
VBC’s mobile Visitor Center greeted guests as they arrived at the event. The freshly wrapped vehicle looks like a covered bridge, promoting Bucks County’s 12 covered bridges found on the self-guided driving tour. The mobile Visitor Center will be making its way around the county to area attractions, festivals and events to meet visitors where they are.
VBC is now offering complimentary concierge training for tourism and hospitality industry organizations, training frontline staff on all that Bucks County has to offer visitors.
Heather Walter, marketing director for VBC, shared marketing initiatives, including enhanced focus on content creation and optimization across social media platforms.
VBC’s social channels have grown rapidly in the past year. Video views are up more than 1,000 percent on Instagram, 250 percent on TikTok and 40 percent on YouTube since 2022, with video reels creating the largest traction.
“Different generations are consuming media differently,” said Walter on the different spaces that users are finding content. When monitoring analytics beyond VBC’s website, social channels have gained more than 100 million impressions in 2023 versus 2022, with Facebook being the leading source, Instagram second, followed by TikTok and YouTube.
As a result of the digital and social media focus, more traffic is being driven to visitbuckscounty.com, with pageviews up 125 percent versus 2022.
Walter also highlighted the ongoing success of the Bucks County Ale Trail as it enters its fifth year. A new passport will launch soon that is points-based with new prizes, including T-shirts, hoodies and hats.
Billboards and commercials continue to be an important initiative for Bucks County to remain a top-of-mind destination. With the holiday season right around the corner, VBC released its new holiday commercial that will run in digital, streaming and broadcast TV in the Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. markets in November and December.
