3504-21_CabCVB_AnnualReport_2021.indd

PA R T N E R S H I P R E P O R T

V I S I T O R S E R V I C E S After being closed for five months during the onset of COVID-19, the Visitor Center opened back up the end of August 2020. Although the numbers were down considerably, the last four months picked up as partners were using our referral cards and sending visitors our way. V O L U N T E E R P R O G R A M With only one team member in Visitor Services, we have relied on volunteers to assist when needed in the Visitor Center. The original list of volunteers has been scrubbed which reduced the volunteer pool of 300 to 12. Many were college students who either graduated or are now doing virtual classes in their hometown or those who said they wanted to volunteer at one point but were not active. Additionally, quite a few were senior citizens who opted not to continue volunteering at this time. We added two additional resources to help with recruitment. VolunteerMatch is a web-based program that is known in the volunteer world as a go to resource. We are also posting volunteer opportunities on seven area Facebook group pages. T I C K E T S A L E S We have always sold discounted admissions to area attractions using paper tickets. Because of the pandemic, we found that a couple of our attractions wanted to move to a digital format. We found this worked out great and approached the attractions about doing the same. They were in agreement, and we have five attractions we sell tickets for at discount, digitally. As we encourage visitors to make time to visit our attractions, we are now able to let themmake a purchase online in the Visitor Center using our unique discount code as we are telling them about the attraction. The ticket is then available for them to access on their phone, or we can print it for them. R E T A I L We re-evaluated our entire retail inventory and process of how we work with vendors. In the past, we entered into consignment agreements with local artists rather than purchasing wholesale. We reconciled these agreements twice a year and wrote a check to the vendors based on the agreed split. We have moved to buying wholesale from mostly local vendors which gives us the opportunity to purchase re- quested or popular items and we no longer need to go through the reconciliation process.

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