Plumas County paid $7,500 to develop a tourism and marketing website, but isn’t paying anyone to update it. The site isn’t even linked to the county’s own home page.

  Instead the county link takes visitors to plumascounty.org, the site maintained by the Plumas County Tourism and Hospitality Council. That website was formerly maintained by Plumas Corporation through the Plumas County Visitors Bureau, which no longer exists.

  “It’s a work in progress,” said Supervisor Jon Kennedy during an interview last week, six months after the website, exploreplumascounty.com, launched last August.

  At the time, Kennedy said he would administer the website’s content until a permanent webmaster could be named.

  But then the supervisors faced a looming budget deficit and Kennedy focused on that issue. Now he is devoting his time to fighting the looming MediCal cuts, which are threatening Eastern Plumas Health Care and Seneca Healthcare District.

  The county’s website is still accessible, but if anyone Googles Plumas County, the website doesn’t appear until the second results page. It’s a visually beautiful website, and includes a lot of information about the county, but it’s not kept current. For example, a click on the calendar reveals no information about what’s happening in the county. And, if someone asks for additional information, there is no one designated to provide it.

  Kennedy said he is hopeful that an economical solution can be found. In the meantime, he said he is pleased that the county is no longer paying $150,000 to support a tourism bureau and that there “hasn’t been a dip in TOT” (the county’s transient occupancy tax, levied on customers of lodging providers).

  Kennedy said he planned to talk to Michael Clawson of Big Fish Creations, the new website’s creator, to see if he could help.

  “I’d be happy to help,” Clawson said, adding that he has been talking to Kennedy.

  The original contract called for Clawson to develop the website, which he has completed, and to train the webmaster.

  Clawson said that the site is easy to maintain, but it’s more than just posting updates.

  “It’s almost like being a concierge,” said Clawson, and explained that someone needs to respond to questions and make referrals.

  Also, since its purpose is to promote tourism, Clawson said that ideally a marketing component would be included as part of an overall county campaign to attract visitors.

  “They need a marketing plan, not just a website,” he said.

  But the county has a good foundation from which to work.

  Clawson said he developed the website with a lot of capabilities that just need to be implemented.

  And since Clawson is also a photographer, the site is filled with beautiful photos depicting the county, all of which now belong to Plumas County.

  Clawson explained that unlike plumascounty.org, which was owned by Plumas Corporation, the new website is owned by the county.

  “Everything we did for them is now their property,” Clawson said. “They wanted possession of the website.”

  So now the county owns a website, but what they do with it still needs to be determined.

Comments  

 

+8#1RE: County’s tourism website needs some TLC — Elizabeth2013-02-21 09:13

What the article fails to mention is that a group of businesses formed a tourism group and they have taken over plumascounty.org and are doing a wonderful job.

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+6#2Re: County's Tourism website needs some TLC — Emily2013-02-21 09:29

"United we stand, divided we fall".That is what is happening here. The plumascounty.org site has been a successful marketing tool for Plumas County for over 16 years With 601,172 page views this year. It is #1 on Google search, why would you want to dilute that another website? $7500.00 wasted!

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+9#3rental property owner — cecilia reynolds2013-02-21 11:05

Well said, Emily. The website www.plumascounty.org is alive and well. I have no idea why Jon Kennedy and the other Supervisors decided that we needed to reinvent the wheel.
I refer my clientele to the above website and all are very happy that I do. There is a wealth of current info on it.

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+7#4RE: County’s tourism website needs some TLC — Hank Alrich2013-02-21 14:36

I'm not buying the budget pressure excuses, nor using the TOT as a single indicator of PC's tourism health. 2010 travel spending in the county was on par with that of 2002-2004, and nearly $10M dollars below that of 2008. If supervisor Kennedy doesn't think that matters, he's not paying attention.

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+8#5Motel owner, Quincy — Tracy2013-02-21 14:53

Why does the county need a tourism website? Plumas County has a very nice government website. Several of the county supervisors have expressed that tourism is not a priority. Plumascounty.org has reputation, connections, etc for 16 years, and now it is in our hands, the people who really care!

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+3#6Lodging owner — Valerie2013-02-22 07:56

The lodging owners in Plumas county have been able to generated millions of dollars in revenue for the county with the help of the 17 year old www.plumascounty.org website. We have already invested thousands of $ to build it, so support it and not something new with no track record!

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+10#7Motel Owner — Marion Perron2013-02-22 13:21

If the county has no money for marketing tourism, how is it able to afford hiring a new webmaster for a site that is producing very limited results? Using Google Analytics for our motel shows that 1,090 referrals to our website came from plumascounty.org, while only 8 came from the county website!!

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+4#8RE: County’s tourism website needs some TLC — IV local2013-02-23 01:09

Marrion-you are way more tech savvy than most who think they are saving by cutting. The future belongs to those who can integrate their business with such tools as google analytics to reach customers and improve service. Data scares those driven by ideology...

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+3#9RE: County’s tourism website needs some TLC — Jen2013-02-24 11:10

I would love to see plumascounty.org add a pinterest button their pages. That would make it easy to share on pinterest and generate new views and hopefully visitors.

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+1#10RE: County’s tourism website needs some TLC — Karen2013-02-25 15:39

Jen - I'm happy to report that Plumas County Tourism Council does have a Pinterest page and we are in the process of adding the button to the plumascounty.org page. Any other suggestions are welcomed. E-mail to infoplumascounty.org

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