Megan Christianson, Executive Director, Visit Grand Rapids

Megan Christianson, executive director of Visit Grand Rapids, spoke to Invest: about how it attracts visitors to Grand Rapids, the many popular outdoor activities in the area, and why Grand Rapids is an ideal place to unwind and relax in a beautiful, natural setting.

In the past year, what impact has Visit Grand Rapids had on the region?

We have leaned into our seasonal campaigns. We hire local people who live, work, and play here to be our models. We have partnered with an all-female marketing team called Sandpiper out of Baudette. We have found that the click-through rate is much higher because the integrity of the campaign is seen on every advertising platform. We’ve been doing seasonal sweepstakes to give potential visitors a chance to win a vacation here. We launched a winter wonderland campaign, for example. Being real and authentic is important to us. Grand Rapids is off the beaten path. We’re a small community, and we’re not for everybody. We’re not a big city. Grand Rapids is for slowing down and untapping. 

How do you cooperate with the local hospitality industry to attract and accommodate visitors?

We send out regular e-newsletters with area attractions, restaurants, motels, hotels, bed and breakfasts, and so on. We send out multiple publications each year with snowmobile, ATV, and cross-country skiing, and Terra maps. We publish an annual visitor guide with the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce. All of those businesses are in all of these publications. This is how we can accomplish uniform branding and awareness. We coordinate group events on a regular basis, and coordinate annual group marketing campaigns. 

What are some standout attractions in Grand Rapids?

No. 1 is Chippewa National Forest. No. 2 is Tioga Recreation Area, which features a 25-mile, professionally built, multilevel mountain bike trail. It is also an outdoor recreation area of over 300 acres of trails for hiking and biking. Visitors can enjoy water recreation activities, including tubing, paddling, swimming, and fishing. There’s also Tioga Pit, which is a reclaimed mine. Mountain biking is popular. We host several bike races every year. In the winter, visitors can look forward to ATVing, snowmobiling, and snowshoeing.

How do you keep up with changing technologies while still maintaining the rustic feel of the region?

This isn’t a place for everybody. The locals here don’t want too many visitors here at once. This is a unique place in a natural setting, a place where people can untap and unwind. Grand Rapids is supposed to slow you down and help you recharge on a different level. Technology allows us to stay connected to our target market and reach out to potential vacationers. The balance we’re trying to find is to utilize technology to attract visitors, while being mindful not to lose who we are in the process. We don’t use AI to write our newsletters and advertisements. We want to stay true to the voice of our small-business owners, mom and pop restaurants, and resort owners. There’s a sense of being in relationship to the forest. It reconnects you to the land and puts in perspective what’s important in your life. 

What is next for Visit Grand Rapids? What agenda items are you excited about?

We’re looking forward to trying some new technology. We’re looking into digital billboards. We haven’t done a billboard campaign in 12 years. Digital billboards have changed things for us and we continually need to have that awareness branding piece. We are also trying to build brand loyalty, and to sell potential visitors on more aspects of Grand Rapids. Sometimes it’s as simple as making them aware of who we are, where Grand Rapids is located, and what we have to offer. Billboards will allow us to do that, and we can build that over the course of the year. We get 52 weeks on 17 billboards, and we can switch up the campaign or the creative elements to meet different audiences based on our demographic and geographic targets. The first ads we’re placing are going to be more of a branding and awareness campaign in the first quarter of 2025. It’s a new opportunity for us. We’re going to retarget IP addresses with mobile retargeting ads. We’re going to be in the drive patterns of where these people are driving to and from work, to and from their favorite shops, their kids’ schools. Hopefully over that course of the year, we can build up some brand loyalty through strategically placed billboards.