BuckeyeLine

Ohio Dept. of Development Offers Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund Program

As part of the Ohio Department of Development’s strategic goal of investing in Ohio’s regional assets, the Urban Development Division is assisting Ohio’s urban places and buildings in overcoming obstacles of achieving sustainable revitalization through innovative financing, critical resources and redevelopment expertise.

To assist in these efforts, the Urban Development Division is offering the Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund program. The Brownfield Revolving Loan Fund, capitalized by a grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, offers below-market rate loans to assist with the remediation of a brownfield property to return it to productive economic use in a community. Municipalities, nonprofits and private entities can apply for program funding to conduct remediation activities at eligible sites. To learn more about the program, click here, or to speak with someone directly, contact Erin Hazelton, Brownfields and Sustainability Specialist with the Urban Development Division, at erin.hazelton@development.ohio.gov.

A Summer Celebration!

Greetings from the Ohio Tourism Division H.Q.! As we just completed this nation’s annual Independence Day celebration, I am reminded that this whole season is one of celebration for our Industry!

First of all, we celebrate what for many of us is the peak leisure travel season. We eagerly await the headcounts and watch the spending numbers to see if our marketing and messaging is working and to ensure that this year will be stronger than last year. The initial reports we are seeing and hearing from most sectors show good news in that folks are travelling to our great Ohio destinations. They are still looking for great deals, but are very much open to your offers to get away!

Second, we celebrate the start of a new State Fiscal Year as of July 1! Just a couple weeks ago, we were able to announce that funding has been secured for FY’11 in the amount of $5.4 million dollars (an increase of $300,000 over FY’10)! The commitment was there to keep our programs moving forward as the dialogue with the Ohio Tourism Roundtable and Industry stakeholders continues in developing an effective long-term plan for funding Ohio’s tourism marketing and promotion efforts. The proven return-on-investment of effective tourism marketing efforts combined with the passion of our Industry and this Administration’s leadership via the Ohio Department of Development has kept this process moving forward so we can continue providing critical marketing and programming for our Industry in a seamless manner.

Third, we celebrate the initial successes of our 2010 spring/summer marketing efforts. Our Mobile Tour is now three quarters complete and the audience response has exceeded our expectations in most venues! Our social media special promotions have received national attention and created such a buzz that even Peter Greenberg highlighted them on the CBS Early Show. All early indicators show a positive response to our advertising efforts, and we will go into the field with research this fall to gauge the true impacts of the campaign. On the public relations front, we are on a tremendous pace with our 2010 summer media blitz and are pacing well ahead of the solid numbers from 2009. Finally, our Web traffic is solid and social media community continues to grow at a good pace. And let’s not forget our new mobile site that is generating great traffic in its infancy!

Fourth, we are celebrating mid-2010 by throwing ourselves knee-deep into 2011 planning. Look for our announcement next month of dates and locations in September for our 2011 Partnership Opportunities Town Hall meetings. Our budget is in place for another year, our ideas are endless, and our team is well motivated to build upon our prior year successes on your behalf.

Finally, on a personal note, I am celebrating the fact that I have the privilege of serving an absolutely amazing Ohio Tourism Industry! Many of you somehow found out a few weeks ago that I also was celebrating a personal milestone (a.k.a. “Big Birthday”), and the more than 100 cards I received from so many of you and your colleagues were just so incredible! With that said, I will close this month’s message by thanking all of you for your support via: partnership in terms of participating in our cooperative programs and marketing efforts to Share the Ohio Story; economic development in working with us to find the private/public model that will help us become even more competitive and successful in the long term; and friendship in the ways that you all have touched my heart!

Safe Travels,

Amir

2011 Travel Planner Listing Deadline Friday, July 23

Be part of the 2011 Ohio Travel Planner! All Ohio travel and tourism entities are invited to submit/update their organizations’ information in the Buckeye database by 5 p.m. on Friday, July 23, to have your free listing considered for inclusion in the 2011 Ohio Travel Planner (400,000 printed).

PLEASE NOTE, the Ohio Travel Planner DOES NOT include event information. Please do not submit events for the 2011 Ohio Travel Planner.

Free Listings: If your database entry is current, there is no need to re-submit. Please review your entries to ensure information is current and accurate. Due to space limitations, not all listings submitted and approved will appear in the Travel Planner, however, all approved listings will be available on DiscoverOhio.com. The planner features listings for convention and visitors bureaus and visitor service organizations, attractions, recreation, restaurants, lodging and shopping. Each listing includes: business name in bold, address, city, ZIP code, phone and Web address.

Verify Listing Information: Please be aware that the publisher, Great Lakes Publishing, will contact you via e-mail in late August asking you to verify that your listing is accurate before being printed in the Travel Planner. If the publisher does not receive a response, the information can not be considered for publication.

Questions: For questions regarding the Buckeye database or to inquire about your listing, please contact Eric Herzog at eric.herzog@development.ohio.gov or (614) 466-0338, or Roger Barker at roger.barker@development.ohio.gov  or (614) 466-5158. Log on to the Buckeye database today to add your free listing by the Friday, July 23 deadline.

Photos: We’re also looking for photos to be considered for the Ohio Travel Planner. The best are photos that show happy, smiling people enjoying their experience at your destination. We love action shots that aren’t blurry. Please visit http://www.glpublishing.com/imagelibrary/ for more information and to submit images.

Advertising: If you’re interested in advertising opportunities in the calendar, please contact your advertising representative or Emily Vanuch, Great Lakes Publishing advertising coordinator, at evanuch@ohiomagazine.com or (216) 377-3715. The ad close date is Nov. 16.

2011 S/S COE Listing Deadline Friday, Sept. 3

To have your Ohio event considered for inclusion in the printed 2011 Spring/Summer Ohio Calendar of Events (100,000 quantity printed), please submit/update your information in the Buckeye database by 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 3.

Free Event Listings: If your database entry is current, there is no need to re-submit. Please review your entries to ensure dates, phone numbers, etc. are accurate. The calendar will cover events that take place between March and August 2011. Due to space limitations, not all events submitted and approved will appear in the printed calendar, however, all approved events will be available on DiscoverOhio.com.

Verify Listing Information: Please be aware that the publisher, Great Lakes Publishing, will contact you via e-mail in mid-October asking you to verify that your listing is accurate before being printed in the calendar. If the publisher does not receive a response, the listing can not be considered for publication.

Questions: For questions regarding the Buckeye Database or to inquire about your listing, please contact Eric Herzog at eric.herzog@development.ohio.gov or (614) 466-0338, or Roger Barker at roger.barker@development.ohio.gov or (614) 466-5158. Log on to the Buckeye database today to add your spring and summer events by the Friday, Sept. 3 deadline.

Photos: We’re also looking for photos of your event to be considered for the printed calendar. The best are photos that show happy, smiling people enjoying their experience. We love action shots that aren’t blurry. Please visit http://www.glpublishing.com/imagelibrary/ for more information and to submit images.

Advertising: If you’re interested in advertising opportunities in the calendar, please contact your advertising representative or Emily Vanuch, Great Lakes Publishing advertising coordinator, at evanuch@ohiomagazine.com or (216) 377-3715. The ad close date is Nov. 12.

Promote Your Destination for Free at the State Fair!

The Ohio Tourism Division is pleased to announce that AAA Ohio Auto Club is offering a free opportunity to promote your destination at the Ohio State Fair this summer and we hope you’ll take advantage of it!

AAA Ohio Auto Club invites Ohio Tourism Industry members to join them at the fair on Thursday, Aug. 5, to promote Ohio's tourism destinations and attractions. AAA is offering an opportunity to have a free presence in the Central Park area from which to promote your destination, attraction, etc. Those interested in participating should contact Bill Purpura, editor of AAA's Home & Away, at bpurpura@aaaohio.com. Please note that while exhibitor space is free, participants will be responsible for fair admission and parking fees.

Partners are strongly encouraged to create an interactive presence and/or special packages to offer to fair goers. This free opportunity is a great way to get the word out about your attraction, destination, event, etc. to summer travelers, and you can't beat the price!

A Fond Farewell to Jessica Wagner

We are sad to announce the departure of Jessie Wagner, Public Relations Coordinator, for the Ohio Tourism Division. With a wedding in her very near future, Jessie’s fiancé has received a promotion that has initiated their move to the Cleveland area where they will begin married life together. During her three years with the Division, Jessie has been our writer of press releases and BuckeyeLine, she has worked with media and fulfilled their information requests, overseen our online Press Room and Image Library and most recently, began taking a more active role in our social media efforts to tell the world about Ohio’s outstanding tourism experiences. While we will greatly miss her bubbly and effervescent personality and smile, we wish her all the very best as she begins a new chapter in her life. Please join us in wishing Jessie well! And by all means, if you have any job leads for her in northeast Ohio, we would love to keep her in the Ohio Tourism Industry. Jessie’s last day with the Division will be Friday, July 30.

Photo: Jessie gets ready to zip off the first platform at Camp Kern's Ozone Zipline Adventures in Warren County.

Mobile Website Link Added to the Buckeye Database

Due to the exponential growth of smart phones and mobile devices in the world today, we have added a mobile Web link in the categories provided in the Buckeye Database. If you have a mobile version of your site, you can now add the mobile URL in the contacts area of your DiscoverOhio.com database listing.

Ohio Arts Council Seeks Feedback

The Ohio Arts Council is conducting a statewide arts, culture and entertainment opinion poll of Ohio residents. Its purpose is to learn how the OAC can continue to best meet citizens’ cultural needs in a changing environment for state government. It is a critical time for the arts in our state, and your opinions will help the OAC take important steps for its future.

Please take five minutes to complete this brief opinion survey. The OAC would like to know your opinion about the cultural future of the state and your local community, and appreciates your participation.

Best Practices: Measure Your Facebook “Like” ROI

Facebook has released a refreshed Insights dashboard that provides deeper analytics on user demographics, “Likes,” shares and reshares. The dashboard is designed for page owners, publishers using the new social plugins and application developers.

The aggregate data covered in the new dashboard essentially highlights Facebook users’ sharing behavior related to both content on and off the site with better data, graphs and charts. Users can visualize top-level information, as well as drill down to look at specific metrics from individual stories and comments “Liked” on the page. Graphs in the Insights dashboard can even be saved, printed or upsized and viewed in full-screen mode.

Domain administrators who associate their domain with a user ID, page or application can view detailed — yet anonymous — demographic data for each domain. These demographic visualizations cover gender, age, country, city and language breakdowns for a comprehensive look at audience makeup.

The refreshed Insights dashboard appears to be designed to prove to publishers and application developers that sharing and the new Instant Personalization feature are being heavily adopted by users. It’s a smart upgrade that will better help business-oriented Facebook users measure progress within the social network and on their own pages.

This article originally appeared on mashable.com. To access the article, click here.

Tech Corner: Listing on DiscoverOhio.com—Events vs. Specials

What’s the difference between a special offer and an event? On DiscoverOhio.com, each appears in a separate section of the website. Events are posted to the Events Calendar where they are searchable by date, keyword and category. Specials are listed on both your attraction listing and in the “Specials, Packages and Coupons” section of DiscoverOhio.com, one of the most popular sections of the site. You’ll want to make note of the difference between the two when entering your information on DiscoverOhio.com.

Specials: Specials can act in different ways. It may be a discount such as “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” or a percentage discount offered when consumers mention they saw the ad on DiscoverOhio.com. Specials also can be used as a marketing tool to attract additional customers to your business. Regularly-occurring events as part of general business operations should be listed as specials. A function such as a Friday night barbecue, Mother’s/Father’s Day buffet, reduced admission pricing, etc. are all examples of specials.

Events: Events should be of general interest to the traveling public and attract visitors from outside a 50-mile radius of the event’s location. Events must be open to the public as participants or spectators, have specific dates and times, and fall into the categories provided in the database section on Industry.DiscoverOhio.com.

Where in the World

July 7: Amir and Eric in Dayton and Coshocton for County Economic Impact Report presentations
July 8: Amir and Eric in Sandusky for County Economic Impact Report presentation
July 8: Tammy attending Franklin Park Conservatory “Savage Gardens” Media Preview
July 9: Tammy attending Middle Bass State Park Opening
July 12: Amir at Fish Ohio Day
July 22 – 23: Amir and Joe at Great Lakes of North America Annual Meeting in Cleveland
July 28: Amir attending Ohio State Fair Opening