Pocahontas County CVB Reports a Famous Visitor Came in January
Cara Rose, the Director of the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau updates us on upcoming events and a recent famous visitor, but first, remembering how bad things were a year ago, we wanted to know how the ski season has been going so far this year.
“Well, thank you Tim for allowing me to share with the listeners some tourism updates” Cara said. “Of course we are in the middle of ski season, and ski season has started off pretty good. In January we had a warm spell, but we are back in the thick of winter, looking great, lots of phone calls and people looking for lodging in the area. The ski season brings a tremendous amount of dollars into our economy and it produces about eighty-five percent of the Hotel/Motel Tax. So ski season is very important to Pocahontas County.”
Cara says that 100% of the trails are open at snowshoe.
She also provided some of the tourism related events coming up at Snowshoe and mentioned that you can find a complete list at “snowshoemountain.com” then go to the “things to do” page.
- The Home Grown music and Arts Festival is March 3rd through the 5th
- The Ball Hooter Spring Break Festival is March 10th through the 12th.
- West Virginian Native and American Idol winner Landau Murphy will perform a free concert on February 11th
- There are concerts at the Resort each weekend
Cara also wanted our listeners to know that the West Virginia Hospitality Training class schedule can now be found at the PCCVB website, “PocahontascountyWV.com”; that the new 2017 Pocahontas County Visitors’ Guide will be available in about two weeks; and that The Great Greenbrier River Race will be on the last Saturday in April. People can register for the Race by either calling the PCCVB office -304-799-4536 or register on the Greenbrier River Association’s website
Oh! There was one more exciting thing – Pocahontas County had a nationally famous visitor in January, as Cara explains – and we both joke about a little.
“The Traveling Gnome, Travelocity’s spokesperson, visited Pocahontas County in January” Cara said. “Hopefully people saw that in the newspaper and found that of interest. It gave us a lot of exposure to a large audience of travelers. He visited Cranberry Glades where he did some snowshoeing. He also had dinner at Elk River Inn and he spent some time at the snowshoe, where he was visiting the pool. He also took a ride on a snowmobile and snowboarded at the park. He had a great time (light laughter).
“Is that the little thing that they set down or it is actually a person” I asked Cara.
“It is actually a garden gnome statue” Cara answered. “It stands about 12 inches high. As far as a model goes, you couldn’t ask for a better model. He always has a smile on his face, he never needs make-up and never needs an outfit change.”
“And never talks disrespectful to anyone” I added.
“Right, and done everything you ask him to (laughter)” said Cara. “It was a lot of fun. It was real interesting to have the Gnome visit and the folks that travelled with him were wonderful. Again, it did give Pocahontas County and West Virginia a tremendous amount of exposure to the Travelocity and Travelling Gnome followers on Instagram and other social media.”
“How many people came with him? I asked.
“Traveling Gnome has two handlers” replied Cara. “One is a Travelocity employee and the other representative was an employee of the travel agency. Their job is to make sure he gets where he is supposed to go and on time.”
“Pretty Cool” I commented, “I guess he never wanders off.”
(Laughter) “That’s funny” Cara said. “That is their theme you know, that’s their slogan- something about wandering. But no, he doesn’t wander off.” (Laughter).
Having too much fun, this is Tim Walker, Allegheny Mountain Radio News.
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