Economic Development Department update – Moab Sun News

On the Oct. 18 Grand County Fee assembly, Financial Growth Division Director August Granath shared updates on the division’s latest actions and achievements. The division oversees tourism promoting; along with campaigns aimed toward guests who drive and guests who fly to Moab, the division has centered on academic campaigns and selling accountable recreation. 

Granath described campaigns explaining the timed entry program at Arches Nationwide Park: They created net pages, distributed data playing cards and journey guides to native companies, positioned advertisements in native print media, and positioned an informational poster in Canyonlands Regional Airport. In addition they spent $200,000 on a digital marketing campaign, with data on TripAdvisor, Instagram, Fb and YouTube. 

Granath proudly shared a brand new academic video posted on the division’s YouTube channel and on the discovermoab.com web site. Filmmaker Mark Finley, who has labored with the Moab Space Journey Council and the Financial Growth Division on many previous tasks, created the video selling accountable recreation, known as “Moab’s Dwelling Soil Crust,” through which native scientists Sasha Reed and Kristina Younger expound on the significance of staying on trails to guard organic soil crusts within the Moab desert. 

“Biocrusts matter for thus many causes in these deserts: they stabilize soils, they add fertility, they work together with crops and wildlife in ways in which we’re solely simply beginning to understand,” Reed says within the video, as close-up footage explores the intricacies of the moss, lichen and cyanobacteria that make up the biocrust. 

“He’s obtained a brand new macro-lens that will get actually prime quality up-close content material,” Granath informed the fee. “The standard, to me, looks like a Discovery Channel piece.” 

Movies like these are a part of the division’s technique to ascertain a tradition of accountable recreation within the Moab space. The division is selling messages not nearly defending pure sources, but additionally about courtesy in residential areas and on the town. 

The division additionally partnered with the Southeast Utah Well being Division, the Grand County Energetic Transportation and Trails Division, and the Stable Waste Particular Service District to disperse data on correct disposal of moveable human waste baggage: a web page on the Uncover Moab web site lists the places of recent drop-off factors. 

Along with focused promoting campaigns, the division produces and distributes journey guides and fields cellphone calls and emails from guests.

The division additionally created a number of new grant applications this yr, and has dispersed or will quickly disperse round $1 million to the group. One grant was aimed toward tourism companies, (known as the Advertising Our Superior Companies, or MOAB! grant) and distributed about $30,000 to seven awardees. A range committee has recognized dozens of recipients of the division’s Sustainable and Resilient Enterprise (or STAR) grants; the primary spherical of those awardees, which is able to obtain a complete of $709,135, was unanimously authorized by the fee on the Oct. 18 assembly. One other spherical might be reviewed on the fee’s subsequent assembly. One other grant program provided reduction for companies affected by the extreme flooding in August; the division dispersed $213,000 via that program. 

Members of the division additionally pursued networking {and professional} growth alternatives, gaining new levels and certifications and attending conferences and commerce reveals. The division’s Canyonlands Enterprise Summit drew 150 attendees from each Grand and San Juan counties. 

Sustain with the division’s actions on discovermoab.com and grandcountyutah.net/Economic-Development.