You probably won’t be surprised to learn that more people visit Grand Rapids in summer than any other season. Temperate weather, long hours of daylight and plentiful outdoor recreation opportunities are irresistible tourist magnets.
What may surprise you is that we experience a relatively constant flow of visitors throughout the year. Yes, travel peaks in summer, but spring, fall and winter aren’t far behind – because there are great things to see and do every month in Grand Rapids/Kent County. Meetings and conventions also play a major role in the consistency of our visitor counts, as warmer weather tends to bring more national clients to town and we host more events for state clients in cooler months.
Even as many other destinations suffer a significant downturn in visits from December through February, Grand Rapids/Kent County continues to welcome out-of-town travelers all winter long.
Holiday events and shopping lure visitors to the area in December, while World of Winter is a big draw in January and February. It’s such an abundance of riches that Experience Grand Rapids markets two distinct cold-weather seasons – Winter 1 and Winter 2.
Winter 1: Unwrap the Season
The Grand Rapids area is hosting more major holiday happenings than ever, and we’ve been actively inviting visitors to “unwrap the season” with us to experience them. The newly expanded Christkindl Markt and the new ENLIGHTEN outdoor experience at Frederik Meijer Gardens lead our promotional efforts this year, joined by many other holiday exhibitions, performances, parades and concerts.
In addition to our usual complement of winter marketing – including ExperienceGR.com, digital advertising, MI Public Radio, in-state billboards and collateral materials – we’ve made a promotional investment in Indianapolis this season. Our data shows that Indianapolis residents stay in Grand Rapids slightly longer than our average visitors, so they’re the kind of visitors we want.
We launched a digital billboard campaign around Indy featuring winter and holiday-themed creative to entice travelers and local residents alike. We also extended our Carvertise advertising, currently running in Chicago and Detroit, to include Indianapolis. These Grand Rapids-branded Uber, Lyft and DoorDash cars garner high exposure with travelers over the course of a few months. Our cars also “swarmed” two major Indy events in November – a Taylor Swift concert and the Detroit Lions vs. Indianapolis football game. The latter is a nice complement to our ongoing Lions radio campaign and Ford Field advertising.
We’re also running ads at both Detroit Metro Airport and Chicago O’Hare during the holiday travel season (Nov. 11 - Jan. 12). The campaign includes 44 TV screens in the Detroit McNamara Terminal and baggage claim, and 29 TV screens at O’Hare, distributed across all terminals and baggage claim areas. It’s the second year for us in Detroit and the first in Chicago.