Pocahontas County -One of Top Two Tourism Counties in West Virginia

Back in September, the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau had the opportunity to host the Governors Conference on Tourism. To learn more about that event and what happened there, we spoke with Cara Rose, the Executive Director of the Bureau.

“Pocahontas County was lucky enough to host the Governor’s Tourism Conference this year” said Rose. “The (state) Tourism Office holds an annual Tourism Conference in the State of West Virginia. It’s held in a variety of different places, and we were fortunate enough to be the host this year. This will be the third time in the last thirty years or so that we’ve been the host. It was held at Snowshoe Mountain Resort.”

“The weather that week was outstanding. All of our tourism partners and colleagues had a wonderful time at the event. There were about three hundred state-wide tourism colleagues that attended. All of them had wonderful things to say about Snowshoe Mountain Resort and Pocahontas County. They were so happy to be here during fall foliage. It was a beautiful time of year, and it was a great conference.”

“The state did have a terrific line-up of sessions. They hold educational sessions for attendees, keynote speakers that give us key tips on marketing our destinations, as well as presentations on state-wide research statistics on visitor-ship, advertising results and economic impacts that tourism has on the State of West Virginia.”

Cara, did you learn anything new at the Conference?

“What we learned during the conference was that Pocahontas County is one of the top two counties in the state impacted by tourism. So, it just amplified how important tourism is during the West Virginia Tourism Conference here at Snowshoe.”

“Also, during the conference, they announced the ‘Stars of the Industry Awards.’ Pocahontas County was awarded the best overall advertising campaign this year. So, we were delighted to receive that award. It says a lot about our marketing efforts; the staff ag the CVB; the work that we are doing and our strong presence in the marketplace.”

That’s a pretty prestigious award!

“It is. We have actually been very fortunate to win a number of advertising and Stars of the Industry Awards in the past.  It was a great opportunity for us to showcase Snowshoe. It was a great opportunity for us to showcase Pocahontas County as a travel destination to our colleagues around the state, many of which had never been to Snowshoe Mountain Resort. And I heard from a wide number of them who said they’d never been to Snowshoe, and it is a beautiful place and that they had an outstanding time during the conference.”

So in a year  defined by successful tourism initiatives such as receiving the International Mountain Biking Association’s designation as being one of their Ride Centers, and hosting the Mountain Biking World Cup races at Snowshoe Resort, it appears county residents have another reason to be proud of the work the Convention and Visitors Bureau does to promote the county.