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Visit Lee County reports sharp growth in online engagement; plans more event‑focused advertising
Summary
Discover Dixon/Visit Lee County reported a large quarter‑over‑quarter increase in social media views and website engagement and proposed a shift toward more event‑focused advertising; staff offered to return in December with estimated economic impacts.
Amanda Wike, executive director of Discover Dixon and Visit Lee County, presented the quarterly tourism and marketing report to the Lee County Board, reporting strong digital‑engagement gains and plans to shift more advertising toward events.
Wike told the board the Visit Lee County and Discover Dixon platforms recorded 509,462 views for the quarter, a cited increase of 395 percent versus the prior quarter. She said much of the growth came from short video “reels,” which she reported generated a large share of new followers and traffic. Wike identified The Meadows and Franklin Creek reels as particularly high‑performing posts (cited view counts of about 253,000 and 111,000 respectively).
Wike said the website’s most popular pages were the events calendar and specific event landing pages such as the Paw Paw Labor Day celebration, and that visitor behavior metrics showed longer session durations and a lower bounce rate (down 6 percent). She reported a tourism estimate — covering April through August — of about 160,500 overnight trips and roughly 423,300 total visit nights, increases year over year.
Board members asked whether staff could provide estimated economic and tax‑revenue impacts from tourism. Wike said the organization uses Placer.ai for visitation and spending estimates and agreed to return at the December meeting with quantified (estimated) spending figures, noting the data are modeled and not exact.
Wike outlined near‑term priorities: expanding event‑focused ad buys, refreshing marketing materials and photo/video libraries, continuing co‑branding with Discover Dixon and pursuing state tourism grants to match county funding.
