$2.5 Million CARES Act Grant CAN HELP Marketing Tourism For The State

2020 was a hard year for tourism. Nationally, the industry contracted by 45 percent. While Wyoming fared far better and shrunk only by twenty five percent, it was still a big impact.

Diane Shober, executive director of the Wyoming Office of Tourism, said travelling in 2020 relied heavily on road trips.

"That's always been nearly all how our travelers arrive, so we didn't have to reinvent ourselves," she said.

But the state's tourism industry still felt an enormous effect as travelers didn't spend much money whilst travelling. And the Wyoming Legislature has just slice the office's budget by 13 percent. Shober said the CARES money will head to marketing.

"This will be an integrated part of our 'That's WY' brand, and you will be built after recovery, using visitors economy as a way to still continue to contribute to Wyoming's overall recovery and support jobs and sustained jobs inside our state," said Shober.

Part of this will be targeting people to actually spend cash while to operate a vehicle through the state.

"What you want to do is get persons back into likely to events and participating in activities and spending more while on the trip. And looking at also, back to a national awareness media campaign," she said.

As of this past year, any office concentrated more on a regional awareness media campaign.

Shober is optimistic about 2021 as organic and natural looks for Wyoming travel were up 27 percent just in March.