2024 Rural Tourism & Byways Conference

This year's schedule includes sessions on attracting sponsors to your event, forming successful regional partnerships and how to present information to your stakeholders. We'll even tackle AI, including trends and how to put this new tool to work for you. Special presentations by Louisiana Office of Tourism staff will help you navigate different opportunities and resources available. And a case study will demonstrate how a rural town revitalized itself.

Conference Details:
Monday, June 10 - Wednesday, June 12

West Baton Rouge Conference Center

2750 North Westport Drive

Port Allen, LA 70767

Registration $40

Conference Agenda
Monday, June 10

1 P.M. Welcome - Housekeeping  
Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser  

1:15 P.M. Forming Successful Regional Partnerships (3 hours)  
Julie Payne, President, Attractour, LLC

Audrey Bialas, Director of Sales, Visit Hershey Harrisburg  
Greg Edevane, Director of Global Development, Chester County’s Brandywine Valley  
Gregory P. Marshall, Founder of Genesee Journeys, LLC

Regional entity collaboration provides opportunities to drive visitation and extend the stay within rural communities. Partnerships allow for the creation of rural encounters and the opportunity to jointly promote these experiences. This presentation will have an overview of rural tourism and the value of partnerships. Panelists will discuss their regional collaborations including building partnerships, creative thinking, authentic packaging, and promotion. A guided breakout session by region will allow partners to interact and align their diverse assets within their rural communities through creative brainstorming.

4:15 P.M. Louisiana Office of Tourism Website/Industry Portal  
Jennifer Berthelot, Louisiana Office of Tourism   

The Louisiana Office of Tourism has a wealth of information, training videos, research, grants and other funding mechanisms, and other tourism industry information on the industry portal. Jennifer will walk you through the available resources.

5:30 P.M. Opening Reception – WBR Museum

Tuesday, June 11

9 A.M. How to Attract Sponsors to Your Event (1.5 hours) 
Bob Pacanovsky, The Black Tie Experience 

We all want sponsors for events. Wanting them to sponsor is one thing. Getting them to do it, and giving them a great experience, so that they will come back again and again, that’s the key to building loyalty and revenue.  How do you do it? That’s what this program is all about. To attract and retain companies, whether they are sponsoring your fair or festival, or bringing them to your attraction, the same principles apply. In this program, how to speak the language of companies when it comes to them sponsoring your fairs and festivals.

11 A.M Advertising: Radio vs TV vs Print – When to Do What and Why?  
Karron Alford and Sharon Broussard, Louisiana Office of Tourism  

Learn about the best ways to promote your event, attraction or area as a tourism destination. We’ll take a look at the various types of advertising, and discuss when it’s best to use them as well as which ones that will best fit your budget.

12 P.M. Lunch

1 P.M. Do Your Stakeholders Know You? What and How to Present Information to Stakeholders and Your Board  
Karron Alford and Sharon Broussard, Louisiana Office of Tourism  

It’s critical to keep your stakeholders advised of your tourism activities.  Local “buy-in” is important for CVBs and tourist commissions. Knowing what to present can be challenging, but sharing information is important to the work you are doing. It will help them feel engaged. Your takeaways will include useful tips for planning ahead and discovering resources that will help you gather the information needed to present a story that shows the local impact of your work in correlation to your mission statement.  

2 P.M. Sports Marketing  
Will Bloom, Louisiana Office of Tourism

3 P.M. Tourism Alphabet Soup - Or Can You Speak Tourism?  
Cheryl Hargrove, Hargrove International 

We abbreviate words or phrases to save time, effort or space. This is great, but if you don’t know what the acronym or abbreviation stands for, it may feel like people are speaking a different language. For those of us in the tourism industry, like many others, we use a wide array of abbreviations and/or acronyms. 

4 P.M. From the Brink of Bankruptcy to Prosperity - St. Joseph – A Town That Revitalized Itself 
Learn from a person who was there how this small, rural community revitalized itself and now has become a tourist attraction.

5 P.M. Dine Around

Wednesday, June 12

9 A.M. Artificial Intelligence – How and When to Use It  
Krista Neher, Bootcamp Digital  

During this session you will be introduced to the trends, pros and cons of AI:  
•    AI Trends and capabilities in marketing and productivity   
•    Recognizing the limitations and liabilities of using AI   
•    How to optimize AI chat tools like ChatGPT to create powerful outputs   
•    Top uses of AI for productivity and marketing   
•    AI tools to grow your results   
•    Examples and case studies showing the power of the tools

10 A.M. Three-hour Deeper Dive in Using Social Media as a Promotional Method  
Krista Neher, Bootcamp Digital  

Picking up where we left off last year, Krista will delve deeper into the use of social media.This session will include:  
•    The components of successful text, image, and video posts that grab attention and drive action   
•    Using user-generated content   
•    Adding authenticity, fun, and value to your social media content   
•    Deciding on your social media ad campaign objectives   
•    Defining your strategy, deciding on platforms, and choosing ad types   
•    Measuring performance   
•    Turning analytics into strategic next steps

1 P.M. Lunch

1:30 P.M. What’s New with LOT  
•    The Year of Music   
•    Birding   
•    AAHT  
•    Discussion on the roles of byway organizations (byway evaluations)   
•    Discussion on what’s next