Angelica Ramos
Contributing Writer
CHRISTIANSBURG- The Cure Agency gave a presentation on tourism and marketing during the Christiansburg Town Council meeting held Tuesday, Aug. 13.
The Cure Agency was brought in by The Montgomery County Tourism Office to help provide suggestions and analysis on tourism in Montgomery County and the towns within it. The analyses were strategic and are meant to provide recommendations on marketing, particularly advertising, to show potential tourists what Montgomery County has to offer.
According to the presentation, the Cure Agency conducted research and analysis of “like” communities, meaning communities in other states or counties that are similar to Christiansburg. They also did interviews and community visits with facility members and community members. The Cure Agency found that Christiansburg residents feel as though Christiansburg is not being represented.
The “way forward” presented by the agency highlighted three pillars that the Town of Christiansburg could improve upon, capitalize on and highlight to increase tourism and help Christiansburg feel represented. These were Transportation and Connectivity, Innovation and Technology, and Group Getaways.
There is so much Christiansburg has and does that would attract tourists, like drone deliveries and the recreational assets the community has. The Cure Agency explained how the use of keywords by visitors and tourists shows Blacksburg has more awareness in comparison to Christiansburg.
Some of the marketing suggestions the Cure Agency had were to create visitor experience guides for incoming visitors to know what Christiansburg has to offer, how to find it, etc. This would show visitors that Christiansburg is not just a place to stay when you’re in town for a Tech game, but also has fun and cool things to do in conjunction with Blacksburg as well as outside of its relationship to Blacksburg. To jumpstart this, they created a 30 second commercial during the Olympics TV broadcasts. Highlighting Blacksburg and Christiansburg together as assets to Montgomery County.
“As you guys go,” Alex Brito, a partner at the Cure Agency and the presenter of the evening, said, “and look to make next decisions around tourism, I greatly appreciate the decisions you all will have to make, but the stories have to be told and right now they can’t be told. Each town is on pause until we figure out if the story being told in the future is one of collaboration or one of separation.”
This presentation opened up the opportunity to questions and showed how passionate the Christiansburg Town Council is when it comes to discussions of tourism.
