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Regional tourism director: visitors, hotel rooms and promotional work fuel local economy
Summary
Cheryl Wagner, Rockbridge Regional Tourism director, briefed council on visitor economy numbers and marketing work: the region supports about 2,000 jobs, the visitor guide just published, and digital tools and PR placements are being used to attract visitors.
Cheryl Wagner, director of Rockbridge Regional Tourism, presented an update on visitor economy activity, marketing and strategic planning for Lexington and the surrounding region.
Wagner said the tourism office compiles and promotes regional assets — leisure travel, meetings, sports tourism and outdoor adventure — and that Virginia Tourism Corporation data for 2023 (covering the three jurisdictions) shows tourism supports roughly 2,000 jobs. She summarized local hospitality statistics the region uses for planning: about 1,700 hotel rooms across the three jurisdictions, roughly 105 restaurants, 16 bed‑and‑breakfasts, nine campgrounds, 56 independent retailers, four craft breweries and five wineries (figures presented as regional totals rather than Lexington‑only counts).
Marketing and analytics: Wagner described public relations placements with travel writers, paid and earned media valued in the millions of ad equivalency, digital marketing, an enewsletter with nearly 18% open rate, and use of analytics tools (cell‑phone and credit‑card sample data) to map visitor origin markets and spending patterns. She said top markets include Northern Virginia, Norfolk and Richmond, and that Lexington and Natural Bridge are the region’s primary visitor destinations.
Projects and timeline: Wagner said the office operates two primary websites (LexingtonVirginia.com and RockbridgeOutdoors.com), is conducting a strategic planning process starting in May and hopes to have the plan by October, and uses CrowdRift to license user photos for marketing. She described a portable tourism pack (portable skate park) and coordinated regional branding efforts such as the Shenandoah beer trail passport program.
Council took the update as informational; members asked questions about visitor center leases and the relocation of the Buena Vista visitor center to a town site. Wagner said Buena Vista’s move is scheduled for July 1 and that negotiations for the Lexington visitor center lease continue with Brightspeed.
