The Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce received a $10,000 grant from the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC)’s Microbusiness Marketing Leverage Program (MMLP) for its Buy Local Campaign.
The Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce will partner with other local businesses to supply matching funds for the project. The focus of the Buy Local campaign is to highlight the retail tourism available in Montgomery County by promoting small businesses through television and radio marketing commercials.
Virginia Tourism Corporation awarded more than $757,000 to 131 marketing programs, ultimately impacting 655 combined partners, and supporting more than 1,300 jobs across the state to help increase off-season visitation to tourism businesses and destinations.
Steve Baffuto, President & CEO of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce stated, “Its an honor to receive this grant from the Virginia Tourism Corporation. We plan to take full advantage of this opportunity and showcase the wide selection of retail businesses and restaurants Montgomery County has to offer.”
“The Microbusiness Marketing Leverage Program is part of VTC’s strategy to grow year-round visitation in Virginia and is designed to support small tourism businesses with marketing dollars to drive out-of-state visitation during off-peak travel seasons. We are excited about this program because we see it as a gateway for small businesses to engage with VTC’s marketing and development ecosystem to grow their business and build on the Virginia is for Lovers branding,” said Rita McClenny, President and CEO of Virginia Tourism Corporation.
The VTC Microbusiness Marketing Leverage Program is designed to increase visitor spending in the off-season by leveraging limited marketing dollars, stimulating new tourism marketing through partnerships, and extending the “Virginia is for Lovers” brand. This is a program focused on supporting tourism businesses with less than 20 full-time employees through marketing partnerships. A minimum of five Virginia entities must partner to apply for the microbusiness marketing grant. Partners may consist of Virginia cities, towns, counties, convention and visitors’ bureaus, chambers of commerce, other local or regional destination marketing organizations, private businesses, museums, attractions, cultural events, and other tourism-related businesses.
Submitted by the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce