In a move designed to better position itself as a visitor destination to area residents and out of state travelers, federal, state and local officials representing Central Massachusetts and Northern Rhode Island have released details of their efforts to promote tourism in the Blackstone River Valley as one combined region.
Officials of the John H. Chafee Blackstone Valley National Heritage Corridor, the Rhode Island Division of Tourism, the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce and the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council have completed the $20,000 plan. It is considered the first time a one region, two-state approach has been taken like this in New England. The plan was designed to bring the nine communities of Rhode Island’s Blackstone Valley and the 11 communities of the Massachusetts Blackstone Valley into a single tourism development and marketing plan.
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The efforts focus on each group on jointly developed products through organization, programming, brochures, trade shows and common advertising targeted to visitors in the Northeastern U.S. and Canada.
“The concepts we are unveiling today seemed so important that as soon as the meetings began, joint efforts began to take place, money was being saved and the rest of the elements became easy to implement,” said Robert D. Billington, president of the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council.
Billington said the new strategy “gives us more leverage in packaging tourism to a wider national and global audience.”
According to Billington and Michael Creasey, executive director of the National Heritage Corridor, the plan literally makes hundreds of recommendations that will be implemented through the coming years.
