Highway travelers boost local tourism

It’s a scene that plays out every summer day — you are headed to your favorite camping spot, eager to get there and enjoy the great outdoors. Then, you get behind an RV — either with out-of-state license plates or an Alaska plate and a rental sticker on the back — that is insistent on doing (gasp) the speed limit.

Before you raise your ire, however, think about the economic impact that RV and all other highway travelers have on the Mat-Su Valley. RVing is a great way to see a new place on your own time and agenda, naturally making it an enjoyable way to see a state as large as Alaska. Along the way, highway travelers stop for gas and snacks at local service stations, they frequent local restaurants, may need to stop for repairs and put money into local campgrounds or even the State Parks system.

Highway travelers are particularly important to the Mat-Su Valley, since we aren’t necessarily considered a cruise destination. Yes, we get a lot of cruise visitors who are doing packaged tours either pre- or post-cruise, and the importance of a healthy cruise sector is important to our overall success as a destination. But highway travelers entering Alaska, who are headed south, travel right through our destination every day, spending money along the Glenn or Parks highways and enjoying the many attractions that make the Mat-Su Valley unique.

Marketing to these highway travelers is important, and the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau does that in a number of ways. Visitor guides are distributed throughout the country at popular RV shows that attract hundreds of thousands of potential visitors, for example. The Mat-Su CVB also works with national travel writers who focus on RVing, to highlight our destination. Printed advertisements are also placed in targeted publications such as The Milepost. And this year, we’ve implemented a QR code campaign with placards at local businesses, to connect with highway travelers already in the state and looking for something to do or somewhere to stay.

On a larger scale, the state of Alaska’s tourism marketing efforts includes a successful partnership with the Canadian government in the North to Alaska campaign. Canada recognizes it benefits from highway travelers from the Lower 48 who are coming to Alaska, and they have partnered with the state to help market the route and the destination.

The next time you are flustered by that motor home in front of you, take a deep breath and remind yourself that because they are on the highway here in the Mat-Su Valley, they are spending time and money in our community. More than just holding up traffic, they are paying sales taxes that help offset your property taxes, and they are putting money into our community that circulates and ultimately ends up in your wallet.

Casey Ressler (casey@alaskavisit.com) is the marketing and communications manager at the Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau.