BY JEFF BACON
The Hailey Chamber of Commerce has just released its first edition of its Community Guide and Membership Directory just in time for the warmer months and summer visitors to the Valley.
Last year, the Chamber participated in a statewide visitors campaign called 18 Summers, which speaks to the unfortunate reality that families only have 18 summers to spend with their kids before they’ve grown and begin to make a life of their own. The response to the Chamber’s participation in this popular program exceeded initial expectations and highlighted the need for a complete compendium of all that makes our Valley such a great place to live or visit.
“We were blown away at the number of requests for information we received from people coming to the Wood River Valley for vacation,” notes Chamber operations director Pat Bowton. “This new Community Guide will really help us get some great information into the hands of people that we know are coming to the Valley, months before they get here.”
“Idaho’s visitor numbers have been increasing every year,” states Matt Borud, chief development officer for Idaho Commerce in Boise. “Programs like our 18 Summers campaign help boost those numbers and it’s great to see our partners like the Chamber benefit from their participation.”
Additionally, this year the Chamber has agreed to participate in another Summer Travel campaign developed and produced nationally by USA Today.
“We anticipate that this summer is going to be a busy one with visitors in the Wood River Valley,” adds Pat. “With so much going on in our Valley every year, it’s easy to see why people want to be here. Our main challenge has always been finding the best way to get information about our Valley in front of the right people and programs like 18 Summers and the USA Today Summer Travel Guide are making it much easier.”
Chamber community guides are fairly common in many parts of the country that depend on tourism. Most are produced by large, out-of-state companies that create guides for many different communities. “We knew we needed to produce a community guide, but we wanted to do it as local as we could, so we hired Centerlyne in Bellevue to design and produce it,” said Chamber president Richard Stahl. “The Centerlyne team has done a really great job of putting everything we think is great about our Valley in one place.”
In addition to the printed copies of the guide, the Chamber will also have an electronic version it can send to fulfill many of the requests it receives for information. If you are interested is picking up a copy of the new Community Guide and Membership Directory please stop in to the Visitor Center at the rodeo grounds in Hailey or the Sun Valley-Visitor Information Center at 491 Sun Valley Road in Ketchum.
Jeff Bacon is the Hailey Chamber of Commerce’s membership director. For more information, visit www.haileyidaho.com or call the Chamber at (208) 788-3484.
