Vienna Chamber Receives Marketing Heritage & Cultural Tourism In Rural Missouri Grant

Vienna Chamber of Commerce receives another grant from Missouri Main Street for promoting tourism in Vienna, Missouri. The Chamber plans to use the $5,000 grant to create a "Plan Your Trip" guide to visiting Vienna.

The project we proposed is a "Visit Vienna, Plan Your Trip" virtual guide of where to Shop, Eat, Play and Stay in the area. The virtual tours would be comprised of photos and video of Chamber of Commerce businesses in those four categories. The grant is to aid those that were particularly hit hard during Covid-19 in the area of tourism such as retail, restaurants, and lodging. The content will be put onto an app or onto the website where visitors can experience where to “Eat, Shop, Play, or Stay” and plan their trip accordingly. We will also cover conservation areas as well local parks, and feature all of the outdoor recreation such as fishing, canoeing, kayaking and walking trails that visitors can enjoy. The “Plan Your Trip” virtual tour would be available on the website and at the Welcome Center (not yet open) via QR code.

The "Visit Vienna, Plan Your Trip" guide will be the first phase of the project and must be completed by September 30th. The second phase would be a separate section of videos geared towards those who might want to move here with a campaign of "Work from Anywhere, Live Here". Those videos would feature the schools, churches, real estate agents and other service businesses.

A third section we would like to do would be an Architectural Scavenger Hunt geared more towards students that would be fun and interactive. The scavenger hunt would show students and visitors what is historically significant in Vienna and give them an appreciation for what we still have. This section can be done after the grant period.

Step #1: Choose A Platform

Step #2: Record Virtual Tour Content

Step #3: Marketing the App

---

Step #1: Choose A Platform

Kelly is researching a few choices of tourism apps that our content can live on or the content can be an extension of our current website. We will compare price, features, and user friendliness. The three apps we are looking into are STQRY, Cuseum, and Visit Widget. Each one has it's strengths and we will weigh out the pros and cons of each.

Step #2: Record Virtual Tour Content

Part of our budget will be used to hire a photographer/videographer to record content from the participating businesses. The videographer will then have a checklist to follow of what content to capture at each business as well as interview questions (if applicable).

We would like to have the outdoor filming done in April and May for the parks and conservation areas as this will be the most picturesque time of the year to do so.

Our timeline is to have all of the photo and video editing done by June 30th so that the content can be loaded and built out onto the app.

Step #3: Marketing the App

We know not everyone finds things online so we would like to create a Visit Vienna brochure to be located at the Welcome Center and all area businesses as well. When I visited Rosebud, every shop and restaurant I went in handed me a brochure of what else was in town and a map of where it was located. They really worked as a team to support each other.

In addition, budget permitting, we will create targeted ads for Visiting Vienna. This will be done in conjunction with organic social media content.

You can help Kelly out with this project by writing scripts for your business's section of the tour or providing your own photos that you have taken and what you would like to feature.

Eat - Shop - Play - Stay