Well…this has been building for awhile.
For those of you who live outside of my little City…this won’t mean much to you. You might get a giggle out of the severity of the local craptastic non-social media networking being done by our city’s ‘A&P’ [aka CAPC] commission.
Honestly…I don’t have to say much. I think the videos I’m going to post are going to say it all for me. But I do want to preface my show-and-tell by letting you in on what has brought me to the point of shear incredulity of the ignorance residing in our local commission and it’s ‘experts’…***cack…pardon me…hairball.
In two weeks a very awesome event is scheduled to happen in Eureka Springs. This event is a great honor for the town to host. It is the Annual Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Being a tourism driven town, you can imagine the delight that should be bubbling from every corner of our little burg. Well…it ain’t. Because there are a whole lotta folks that don’t even know it’s happening.
Go ahead…Google ‘Arkansas Governor’s Conference on Tourism’ and see what you get. [FYI: the scheduled dates are March 7th - 9th, 2010]
Pages one and two are glowing with info about the Conference…from 2007, 2008, 2009.
I did find these links to our event (none are local):
Arkansas.com/Governors-Conference
And through this site: Ark Industry Insider I hunted down this site: Whatever
I was also immensely unimpressed with this LinkedIn Event Listing: How Not to Promote an Event on LinkedIn <–that's just a pet name I've given it.
*and don't bother going to http://arkansasgovernorsconferenceontourism.com/ (or the .net) They’re for sale.
But nowhere did I find a LOCAL hotlink to the Conference & Eureka directly. And only one local listing of this event. This, my friends, is inexcusably poor management and ultimately detrimental inactivity on the part of an agency that is supposed to be highlighting our presence in the tourism industry.
Hey CAPC…you FAIL
Now…time for show-and-tell…
Video One: Say Hello to the CAPC’s Visitor’s Information Site…
Video Two: A nice surprise from the City Government site…?
So…for my local friends~! Celebrate those tax dollars hard at work for…eh,…well…something will come to mind. Later.
(yeah, yeah, the grapes are a bit sour…but this sucks)
Thank you Janet!!
This is mindboggling.. but not the first time I’ve noticed that the city does not provide information in a timely fashion… when they provide any at all.
Please, keep it up.. ignore the bullies.
Janet, I too have been taking note of both websites…which have been under major reconstruction (and considerable expense) over the last few months.
On the City website, a bit obscure (under Goverment/Mayor/Tourism Task Force) is this comment:
…”The function of the Tourism Taskforce was originally to coordinate efforts and pool our resources to further tourism in the city. In the last 3 years the Taskforce has successfully rebranded the City of Eureka Springs as “The Extrodinary Excape”, reconnected with the State Department of Parks and Tourism, and are looking forward to hosting the 2010 Governor’s Conference in March….”
Pictured on the page along with the Mayor are: Jim Williams, Sam Ray, Mike Bishop, Jeff Feldman, Randy Wolfinberger, Glenna Booth and Diane Wilkerson
The Chamber website has an old item from 2007 that states “The Mayor’s Tourism Task Force is comprised of representatives from the City Advertising Commission, The Greater Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce, office of the Mayor, The Eureka Springs Tourism Co-op and the Eureka Springs Attractions Co-op.”
…it would seem these are the individuals that would be responsible for making sure that we know/don’t know what is happening on March 7,8 & 9….and they are obviously the benefactors of this event, particularly the 5 hotels who have one entire page of the 10 page Registration Kit (http://www.arkansas.com/governors-conference/pdfs/2010/HotelList_GC10web.pdf) Do you suppose any other hotels might have been asked if they too would like to offer a $69 rate and shuttle participants to the event locations? No where in the entire kit is there a mention of eurekasprings.org though the official Eureka Springs logo appears on the map….I don’t think I have ever seen the logo used WITHOUT the web link.
Perhaps the brand should be “The Extraordinary Cop Out” instead of “The Extraordinary Escape?”
Some good points were made here about CAPC’s lack of presence on social media sites.
Here is another missing element, it’s more technical, but it is hurting the city’s promotion efforts: The CAPC RSS feeds.
http://eurekasprings.org/rss.aspx
If those RSS streams of information were being properly managed, those messages be automatically republished at other sites, like some major publications in Little Rock. (Another Twitter account – EurekaDowntown – is enjoying some extended distribution that way.)
Unfortunately, the situation with the CAPC RSS feeds is pretty bleak at the moment. Events Calendar and News Flash news feeds are completely empty. The page update feed is updated so infrequently, its value is negligible. Considering the big investment the city’s businesses are making in CAPC, it is reasonable to expect that those RSS news feeds should be much more active.
As a huge fan of Eureka Springs, and a software developer with over three decades of experience on Apple systems, I want to create a great Eureka Springs app for iPhone/iPod/iPad. I am committed to making it the best Eureka Springs app in terms of features and technical quality. If the CAPC RSS feeds were working correctly, the app could use that data to present an up-to-date calendar of events and other useful information. (A “CalDAV” data service would be a nice addition, and especially useful for calendars.) Then the information can integrated with other iPhone features, like the GPS and map services. But the ability to do those things depends on CAPC providing fresh, reliable information on their RSS feeds. Other software developers and news media could use those RSS feeds for their efforts too, and it would all benefit the city. Those RSS feeds could be providing some good leverage for promoting the city.
Ok, Doug…you hit on many of my pet subjects (i.e., Macs, RSS, Eureka…etc)…
I remember about two years back…one of the employees of the CAPC went to a big conference in Pittsburgh? Philadelphia? One of those. Anyway, when he returned he was completely excited about the information he had carried away about RSS feeds. (not news to me, btw) and was ready to put it all to work.
??? yep…I imagine you’re thinking what I’m thinking. What Happened? He’s still with the org…so? I guess his job is strictly radio and photos at this point. Sad. And practically useless without online backing.
I think it is a shame Eureka Springs does not take travel and tourism more seriously. It seems like just yesterday when I was on a nice little trip to Arkansas and spent more money on that trip than I did on my first two houses combined. That is what tourism does … it makes people spend money! Without tourists spending money, Eureka Springs will shrink.
I hope that you will enjoy this blog post I wrote to try and support your concerns. “Eureka Springs Tourism = Fail Arkansas Style” http://mamy.us/cjDV9R
I am definitely bookmarking this
I am asking all citizens interested in the happenings at the CAPC office, come to the meeting 6pm on 4/27. We need understanding of the events. Firing the crew how does that work