By MATT PIKE
Come next month, the St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau will have a new Executive Director, as Marci Bennett retires, and Christian Mengel takes the reigns.
Bennett announced earlier this year that after 33 years at the Convention and Visitors Bureau, she would step away and retire this fall. After a nationwide search, the St. Joseph Board of Tourism announced on Friday they would hire from within to replace her, naming Mengel, the current Director of Communications & Marketing, as the new Executive Director.
Bennett says when she started part time helping with sales at the Bureau, she never imagined she would be doing it for 33 years.
"It's like I don't know if I want to do this, I've got two babies at home, but as I got into it I just loved it," Bennett says on the KFEQmunnity show. "And I loved the impact that the Visitors Bureau could make within our tourism community and within our community as a whole, and I think we have done some wonderful, wonderful things and built a great base, and I'm ready for the next generation to take it on and make it even better."
Mengel has been under the tutelage of Bennett in a sense, working alongside her for the past several years, and says the biggest thing he's learned that he will take into the role, is the importance of stewardship for the destination.
"And looking into kind of the visitor economy and finding out where's our gaps, what do we need help with," Mengel explains. "So, the example of, once upon a time our attractions weren't necessarily great at marketing on their own, and so our local coop marketing helped fill that, once upon a time our visitor economy, hotels, restaurants weren't great at telling visitors what there is to do in town, they would push them to Kansas City, so they started up the Show Me St. Joe Experience, and now it sells out every single tour."
Mengel says the overall stewardship of the destination and knowing the improvements that can be made was a great thing for him to witness over the past four years, setting him up for this new experience which begins October 1st.
Bennett will continue to serve as the Executive Director through September. She says in her time she's loved doing several events, and rebooting the St. Joseph Sports Commission, but has been especially proud of the local cooperative marketing program.
"We've spent nearly $3 million over this time period helping our local nonprofit tourist attractions market themselves, it's a matching grant program where we pay 80% of the cost of them advertising and they pay 20%," Bennett explains. "When I first started, the museums they didn't know how to market, they couldn't even afford to print a brochure, so we developed this program and it has developed over the years and I am very, very pleased with that because our nonprofit tourism attractions are pretty savvy at marketing and advertising and that kind of thing."
Overall, Bennett says having Mengel be the person taking over as she retires is a source of comfort, knowing that the Convention and Visitors Bureau is going to be in good hands as she goes on to enjoy retirement.
Interview
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