Union Gap’s “Small Town Tourism Chat” on Twitter celebrates its 2nd Anniversary. #SmallTownTourismChat

Union Gap’s “Small Town Tourism Chat” on Twitter celebrates its 2nd Anniversary
(Union Gap, WA November 12) Union Gap’s popular #SmallTownTourismChat on Twitter turns 2 years old with their next chat on Wednesday, November 18th. The chat was started by Visit Union Gap’s Marketing Director Eric Patrick as a way to reach travel writers, travel bloggers, tourists and other small towns and regions throughout North America.

“We love participating in travel chats on a weekly basis, but didn’t see one focused on small towns and regions. We’ve been happy with the response and interaction and have really grown our travel and tourism community,” stated Eric Patrick

The Small Town Tourism Chat is held once a month, typically on the 3rd Wednesday barring scheduling conflicts. The chat starts promptly at 2:30pm PST/5:30pm PST and 6 questions are asked over a ½ hour period. The first several chats were hosted by Visit Union Gap individually, but they soon added a co-host to both expand the audience and to get a different and fun perspective.
“As we got more and more people and places interacting, we realized there was a lot of energy for our Small Town Tourism Chat and we reached out to frequent participants to see if they’d like to join us to help keep topics fresh and flourishing. We have been able to have a co-host each month since our first host joined us in March of 2019, and we currently have co-hosts booked into March of 2021,” stated Patrick.

The goal was to have co-hosts across a broad spectrum of people and places with different expertises, experiences and interests to continually have something new on the chat.

Co-hosts have included travel writers and bloggers such as Lara Dunning of ‘Small Town Washington and Beyond,’ Lindsay of ‘I’ve Been Bit! A Travel Blog,’ which was Small Town Tourism Chat's first international co-host, Stephanie Forrer of “Eat Drink Travel Y’All”, Heather McCurdy of ‘Real, The Kitchen and Beyond,’ Erica of ‘Tales of A Tired Mom’, Lisa of “Drug Store Divas”, Lori of “SouthernerSays’, and in March the co-host was Jason of “Jason Likes to Travel’ from England.

The Small Town Tourism Chat has also had several regions throughout the U.S. participate as co-hosts including the San Juan Islands, Wicomico County in Delaware, Seattle Southside, Shasta Cascade California, and Colonial Beach, Virginia.

The final category of contributors has been travel experts and consultants such as Becky McCray who is an international speaker on rural and small towns, Tourism Currents who are social media tourism professionals and Tate & Kate Consulting from South Dakota who help small and rural towns survive.

The November 18th co-host is Old 96 District which promotes travel and tourism in the Old 96 District of South Carolina. There will be prizes given away throughout the chat from both Union Gap and Old 96 in celebration of the 2nd Anniversary.

#SmallTownTourismChat has also been asked to participate in two upcoming popular travel chats, the weekly #TravChat hosted by Travchat from England, and on the #RoadTripChat hosted by Lori of Southerner Says on Twitter.

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Eric Patrick
Visit Union Gap
5110 Tieton Drive, Suite 310
Yakima, WA 98908

epatrick@gjhco.com

Union Gap, WA is located in the heart of central Washington State. It is a small and vibrant community with a population of just over 6,000 people. We have great food, 4 national chain hotels, one of the largest Ag Museums on the West Coast and are the gateway to wineries and microbreweries. We have miles of hiking and walking/biking trails that start in Union Gap and countless other trailheads within a 30 minute drive. We are also close to a lot of outdoor forest area for your winter and summer forest and mountain toys.

This release was published on openPR.