Funworld JULY 2007

Making the Most of Local Connections

by J.B. Elderkin

This year-round facility operates a successful dual-season program

Ober Gatlinburg Amusement Park is located near busy Gatlinburg, Tennessee—an area that hosts 9 million visitors each summer. Those numbers suggest that all a business owner needs to do is set up shop and watch the customers roll in. Unfortunately, thriving in the area is not so easy. The visitors come in part because there are so many options available to them—literally thousands of facilities, from mom-and-pop roadside operations to huge, internationally known parks. Not every business survives among such competition.

Ober Gatlinburg, however, has been successful for more than 30 years due to its dual-season operation. In the winter it operates as Ober Gatlinburg Ski Resort. In the summer, when the competition is fierceest, it opens as an amusement park. Kathy Doyle, the park’s director of sales and marketing, believes the park has succeeded because of several carefully developed strategies that make allies of the town’s local population. “With millions of strangers coming through town, where will they look for information about what to do in the area? We’ve found that they ask the locals. People who run motels or work in grocery stores. That word of mouth generates a lot of business,” she explains.

In response to this dynamic, Ober Gatlinburg offers a “Friend of Ober Program.” Any local business that displays Ober Gatlinburg brochures or ads receives 20 free admission passes for each of those businesses’ employees. This is no minor giveaway; the park distributes up to 4,000 passes per summer. “The free pass is good from April through

November, so we get used to seeing a lot of the locals and their friends come to the park,” Doyle continues. “Local people are the key to our strategy. If they come and have a good time, they’ll talk about us to visitors. And when that happens, the investment is worth it.”

The second part of the summer strategy involves intercept marketing. The park displays brochures and small ads in 600 county locations. It also uses

billboards and makes use of the five local informational television channels. “I don’t think most towns have five channels announcing local entertainment,” Doyle jokes. “But that gives an indication of how much is offered in the area, and of how much we need to make our presence known.”

The park also features unique attractions that make for easy marketing. For example, the aerial tram rides that start in town and go up to the ski resort are a big hit in the summer. It also offers alpine slides that make great use of its mountain location. And for tourists who’d like to get a glimpse of the famous black bear population, Ober Gatlinburg features a safe bear habitat. There is also indoor ice skating in the middle of the hot weather, and that brings in lots of visitors looking to cool off.

Doyle also credits Ober Gatlinburg’s dedication to maintaining a year-round staff as part of its ongoing success. Having dedicated, full-time employees throughout the year means another angle on maintaining local connections. The park doesn’t have to rely on students and others passing through, as most of the staff members live in the area. Through summer and winter they become experts on the park, and they are the kind of ambassadors that no money can buy.