News : Destination Vinton: New group of local residents hopes to attract more tourists

Nancy Beckman, left and Brenda Hackbarth represented Vinton at a recent Davenport tourism event.

On September 12 two members of Destination Vinton, a subgroup of Vinton Unlimited, manned a booth at the Iowa Tourism Group’s travel conference held in Davenport.

There were 60 such booths at the conference representing communities, private entities, hotels, etc. Approximately 70 tour directors/planners from all over Iowa and surrounding states visited these booths gathering information to plan next year’s travels for their members.

At the Vinton booth these directors/planners were given information on such attractions as the murals, historic homes, Parr sculptures, Braille School, our vibrant down town, and events that occur annually. At lunch one lucky director/planner was the recipient of an elegant goodie basket created through the generosity of several of our merchants and Vinton Unlimited dollars. Our goal was to entice these directors/planners to include Vinton in their tour plans for the coming year.

This is the first year Vinton has participated in this event, and our participation could not have been possible without the good work of several people.

Brenda Hackbarth and Sue Hammond created a one page brochure/information sheet that is a permanent part of the travel books given to each of these travel directors/planners.

Carolyn Hibbs did Braille writing on 200 bookmarks, these featured a panoramic view of downtown Vinton with a picture of Mary Ingalls superimposed on one end and the wording – Vinton through Mary Ingalls’ eyes, which were handed to each travel director/planner who visited the Vinton booth.

Doug Martens created a one page color brochure on the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School. Lots of other work is being done to enhance Vinton’s image in the tourism market like creating additional brochures, developing a logo to draw attention to Vinton and give instant information as to our location in the state and training workers at access points in the community such as restaurants and gas/convenience stations to have accurate information and maps available to guide visitors through our community, just to name a few.

Destination Vinton has been in existence since January 2012 and is dedicated to promoting and highlighting Vinton’s many assets in an effort to draw people here so they can enjoy these assets with us. Information about meeting dates and times can be obtained by calling Nathan Hesson at the Vinton Unlimited office or the Iowa State Extension Office.