Lackawanna County visitors bureau outlines marketing, events and hotel-tax funding in Scranton presentation

Kirk Kimoni, executive director of the Lackawanna County Visitors Bureau, told meeting attendees that the bureau focuses on digital marketing, sports recruitment and supporting local events to drive visitor spending and hotel stays in Lackawanna County.

Kimoni said the bureau’s website receives over one million visits yearly, the office distributes more than 100,000 printed and digital visitor guides per year, and recent state data (2022) put direct visitor spending in the county at about $726,000,000. “We look at tourism as folks come in from out of town, use very little, if any, social services at all. And when they leave, the only way we can tell for sure that they were here is the money that they've left behind,” Kimoni said.

The visitors bureau is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit that markets attractions across Lackawanna County and offers low-cost partnership options for businesses. Kimoni described the bureau’s primary funding source as the hotel-room tax:…