Tag Archives: marketing

Travelocity names Kitsap a top 10 destination for beer tourism

brew2_21667175_ver1-0_640_480 Kitsap County ranks among of the best destinations in the country for a “beercation,” according to one major travel website.

Travelocity recently released a beer tourism index to assess what areas of the nation are best suited for beer-centric travel.

The index ranks metro areas based on the number of breweries in the area, the availability of rideshare services, air accessibility and the cost of lodging.

Kitsap County (listed as Bremerton-Silverdale) landed at No. 10 on Travelocity’s list of top beer destinations in the small metro area category:

beerdestinations

It’s not a big surprise Kitsap would make this list, considering more than a dozen craft breweries are in business across the county.

Groups like Visit Kitsap Peninsula are already marketing West Sound as a “hops-lover’s heaven.”

Kingston-based CB’s Nuts featured in WSJ

Tad Sooter

cbnuts3_18377479_ver1.0_640_480 A simple business strategy landed CB’s Nuts in the pages of The Wall Street Journal.

The Kingston-based company’s peanut butter was featured in art accompanying a story about food makers marketing products that incorporate a small number of ingredients.

It’s hard to get simpler than CB’s Nuts peanut butter, which uses just one ingredient. (Spoiler alert: It’s peanuts.)

“That’s part of the beauty of our products,” said CB’s Nuts President Tami Bowen told me during a recent interview. “They’re really simple, they’re low input, they’re fresh, they’re clean, so they have a really broad appeal.”

cbnuts2_18377478_ver1.0_640_480 Much, much larger corporations are adopting a similar philosophy, according to the WSJ’s Anne Marie Chaker.

Industry juggernauts Hershey Co., ConAgra and General Mills are all pushing products with fewer additives, and using slimmed-down ingredients lists as a marketing tool.

“Instead of burying ingredient lists in the fine print on the back of the package, food manufacturers are trumpeting simpler formulas prominently on the label’s front,” Chaker writes. Read the full story here.

In other CB’s Nuts news, you may have noticed a Northwest-themed mural painted on a storage container outside the company’s Bond Road headquarters.

Malolo Design (also based in Kingston) posted a cool time-lapse video showing the creation of the mural earlier this year:

Port mulling $75k real estate marketing study

Tad Sooter

SAFE Boats remains an anchor tenant at the port — SAFE Boats remains an anchor industrial tenant at the port

The Port of Bremerton is considering paying a consulting firm $75,000 to study how the district can best market its sprawling industrial property to potential tenants.

According to a memo prepared by CEO Jim Rothlin, the goal of the analysis would be to identify the port’s strengths and generate a list of businesses that could benefit from locating there.

“While the Port has many amenities to offer prospective tenants at the Industrial Park, it is critical that we find a way to stand apart from many other location options available to them,” Rothlin wrote in the memo.

Rothlin is recommending a contract with real estate consulting firm Heartland LLC. of Seattle.

The bulk of the $75,000 price tag would be covered by a $49,500 grant the port recently obtained from the state Department of Commerce. The port would pick up the remaining $25,500.

The port commission will vote on the contract during its next meeting, scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at Bremerton National Airport.

You can read Rothlin’s memo below and find the port commission agenda here.

2016-06-28_Agenda_Packet

Kitsap hotels enjoying spike in demand

Tad Sooter

Kitsap County’s lodging industry has enjoyed double-digit increases in demand and revenue this year, according to a report from an industry analyst.

Through August, demand for hotel rooms was up 14.3 percent from 2014 while revenue increased by 17.5 percent.

Kitsap posted the highest growth in hotel demand of any county in Washington, according to the report from Smith Travel Research, Inc., and summarized in a Visit Kitsap Peninsula news release.

Visit Kitsap Executive Director Patty Graf-Hoke attributed the spike in hotel demand to marketing efforts aimed at attracting more tourists and reducing the county’s dependence on government-related travel.

“We have positioned ourselves in the sweet spot between the Olympic Peninsula and the bright lights of the city,” Graf-Hoke said in the release.

Regional ad campaigns have highlighted Kitsap’s natural setting and recreational opportunities, including its nationally-designated water trails system.

“We have strengthened our message,” County Commissioner Charlotte Garrido said in the release “… I really look at it as us capitalizing on who we are and where we are.”

My compatriot Tim Kelly with Kitsap Peninsula Business Journal recently took a closer look at how hotels are benefiting from the county’s tourist boom. You can read his June story here.