US expansion proceeding at an exponential pace
Since Outdooractive opened its US office two years ago, numerous destinations & travel professionals have recently joined the over 2100 partners that have been trusting us for over 25 years. Following the lead of Visit Salt Lake and the Cascade Loop we are pleased to welcome these members to the Outdooractive family:
- The Destination Marketing Corporation for Otsego County
- DeKalb, Georgia
- Arizona Outback Adventures
- Escape Campervans
- The Appalachian Trail Conservancy
The Destination Marketing Corporation for Otsego County, better known as Cooperstown, New York is the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame and is a perfect stop midway to Niagara Falls. Located about 4 hours north of New York City and called “America’s hometown”, Cooperstown has small-town charm and world-class attractions. Discover living history at The Farmers’ Museum, acclaimed opera at the Glimmerglass Festival, breweries, great restaurants, four-season events, and outdoor fun-from golf and sailing on the lake, to hiking or snowshoeing in Glimmerglass State Park-all amid picture-perfect scenery. This is our second integration with Simpleview and will feature our FlexView API integrated into their site which is scheduled to launch later next month.
DeKalb, Georgia – Just six miles east of downtown Atlanta, DeKalb is home to some of Georgia’s best attractions such as Georgia’s Most-Visited-Attraction, Stone Mountain Park; Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area, David J. Sencer CDC Museum, and Buford Highway’s International Corridor. In addition to amazing places to go and outdoor adventures to have, DeKalb has a rich and varied gastronomical heritage. Whether a visitor is in the mood for traditional southern fried chicken, Chinese potsticker dumplings, or pork belly street style tacos, Discover DeKalb has the foods to appeal to any taste buds. That is why they chose Outdooractive’s mobile gamification technology to get visitors to discover their delectable delicacies and win valuable prizes all while having fun and getting to know the destination.
Arizona Outback Adventures is one the Southwest’s premier tour operators offering multi-day guided adventure and single-day guided tours in Scottsdale, Arizona and the Phoenix metro area, bicycle rentals, and team building and other events for corporate groups. They have recently begun putting their signature experiences into the Outdooractive DMS. These offers are available to an international audience of over 9 million unique monthly visitors that are accessing our contact in over 23 different language from 110 countries around the world.
Escape Campervans is Outdooractive’s first recreational vehicle partner – but they don’t offer RVs – they offer something much more special. Escape Campervans is the largest campervan rental company in North America, with over 500 hand-painted vans, and 10 locations across the continent. They offer fully-equipped campervans for weekends or holidays or bucket list adventures! They developed a product that seemingly offered the bare essentials. At the same time, it delivered everything an international visitor needs to travel and explore a country safely, comfortably, inexpensively, and uniquely. Add in their local knowledge and travel tips, and visitors have got the trip of a lifetime, guaranteed. FlexView for Tour Operators gives Escape Campervans the ability to leverage their unique offerings on their own website, but on Outdooractive.com and its thematic portals and mobile applications as well.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is the first partner in North America to employ our Destination solution. Their mission is to preserve and manage the Appalachian Trail – ensuring that its vast natural beauty and priceless cultural heritage can be shared and enjoyed today, tomorrow, and for centuries to come. The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, extends between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The trail is about 2,200 miles (3,500 km) long. It is the longest hiking-only trail in the world. More than 2 million people are said to take a hike on part of the trail at least once each year.
The trail itself was completed in 1937 after more than a decade of work, although improvements and changes continue. Most of the trail is in forest or wild lands, although some portions traverse towns, roads and farms. It passes through 14 states: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
In line with their mission, they have developed the Appalachian Trail Community Program. 47 communities from Maine to Georgia have been recognized by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy through this program to celebrate areas that promote and protect the AT, and are good neighbors to hikers. These communities act as a catalyst for enhancing sustainable economic development that engages community citizens, trail visitors and stewards and aid local municipalities and regional areas with conservation planning.
In support of this overarching goal of sustainable economic and environmental tourism development, the ATC has developed a Geotourism program to better leverage the local authenticity and encourage hikers & non-hikers alike to experience what the trail and the trail’s communities have to offer.
In order to achieve these objectives, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy needed a trusted technological partner and chose Outdooractive because they have worked with similar trail organizations all over the world. With Outdooractive’s unique technology, this community can tell its stories, promote their local businesses, highlight unique events, inform their visitors, in real time, of trail conditions and other information that will affect their time in the region. The first region chosen for this program is the Harlem Valley. Located about an hour and a half north of New York City the Harlem Valley contains many treasures. It is the only section of the trails that has its own train stop located directly on the trail – called of course – The Appalachian Trail on the Metro North Line.
The outdoor recreation activities in the Harlem Valley are limitless. Additional trails include the Dover Stone Church, Pawling Nature Reserve, Great Thicket National Wildlife Refuge (Nellie Hill Tract,) Lakeside Park and the nearby Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. The Ten Mile River is stocked with rainbows by NYS DEC; the Great Swamp is magical for canoes and kayaks; West Mountain State Forest (Dover,) is a Multiple Use Area where you can hunt, fish, camp, mountain bike, ride on horseback, cross-country ski; the Harlem Valley Rail Trail offers 10.7 miles of a paved path for biking and walking. Cyclists bring your bikes on the train and enjoy the rolling hills dotted with farms worked for five generations to those started by young people leaving urban areas to combine farming with other rural experiences. Birders bring your binoculars: the AT is Ground Zero for bird migration and the Great Swamp is in the Atlantic Flyway for waterfowl.
Outdooractive Destination was chosen for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy because it is a state of the art, front-end, white-label website construction kit solution for economic development and tourism authorities. This comprehensive content management system uniquely offers maximum individualization possibilities in terms of function, appearance and content. It has been designed specifically for tourism and economic development agencies so that they never have to worry about relaunching a site ever again. This cutting-edge technology offers our partners innovative flexibility and creative design options that enable them to continuously augment their sites offerings, while minimizing the time and resources necessary to maintain the data. The product is designed to maximize user friendliness, cost effectiveness and an unparalleled end-user experience. Its powerful, yet versatile interfaces do not require any programming knowledge.