Managing and Enhancing Your Destination
Tourism provides substantial economic benefits to communities and the state, while generating local pride and appreciation of assets, opportunities for cultural and environmental learning, and activities for visitors and residents. Extension helps communities leverage their natural and cultural resources to create resilient and sustainable economies that highlight the state's unique and diverse assets and quality of life.
If your community seeks assistance in the areas of tourism and recreation development, please don’t hesitate to connect with us Penelope.Whitman@unh.edu or Jada.Lindblom@unh.edu. See below for some examples of how Extension engages with communities.
Programmatic Priorities
- Destination Development for established and emerging destinations: Organizational development, coordinated planning, management and marketing. Support and capacity building around destination development can also include scenario planning, feasibility studies, and risk assessments.
- Agritourism Development and Education
- Recreation Economy (in conjunction with Extension’s Nature Economy program)
- Hospitality, Tourism, and Recreation Workforce and Skills Development
What We Offer in This Area
Destination Development
Destination development involves stakeholder identification and engagement; asset maps and inventories, brand and marketing planning; organizational development, regional collaboration strategies; long-term vision planning; visitor services and product development plan.
Scenario Planning and Risk Assessment
For established visitor destinations, Scenario Planning and Risk Assessment involves evaluating impacts of demographic changes and visitor trends upon local tourism industry; utilizing assessment strategies such as SWOT and life cycle analyses for strategic visioning and planning.
Downtowns and Trails Program
This program helps communities that are working on increasing vibrancy in their downtowns and on their main streets. The program seeks to help communities connecting their economic centers with natural assets, such as trails and waterways.
Examples include visitor readiness/resident support for tourism focus groups or surveys, depending upon length of engagement
Upcoming webinar:
January 11, 2022 - Agritourism Essentials: Strategies to Avoid Community Conflicts [REGISTER HERE]
We offer a variety of workshop and training topics throughout the year, including but not limited to:
- Scenario Planning and Risk Assessment
- Building a Monitoring & Evaluation System for Your Destination
- Using Data and Analytics in Community-Based Tourism Planning
- Using Value Chains to Identify Opportunities for Micro-Enterprise Development
- Visitor Marketing and Management for Agribusinesses
Please check here later or contact us if you are interested in these topics or others that are not listed.
Examples of data generation include facilitating focus groups, conducting surveys
Articles
Events
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January 11th, 2022, 10:00am - 11:30am
Resources
A community assessment gathers data from community members to assess the current situation in a cit... Learn More
UNH Cooperative Extension partnered with the Town of Derry to lead a community outreach and engagement effort to re-imagine Hood Park. This re... Learn More
