Tourism workshop held

By Chris Edwards
[email protected]

WOODVILLE – Del Polikretis, who serves as executive director for the Texas Forest Trails program, held a workshop at the Allan Shivers Library last Friday morning, focused on tourism.

The workshop was hosted by Visit Tyler County, which is a new non-profit formed with the purpose of combining resources to promote tourism in the county.

Texas Forest Trail Region, Inc., which is a non-profit that serves a 35-county area of East Texas, makes its mission to work together with a “network of partners…to foster regional economic development by promoting heritage tourism and the preservation of cultural and historic resources,” according to the mission statement on the organization’s website.

The program, Polikretis said, was begun in 1968 under then Gov. John Connally.

Cathy Bennett, who heads up Visit Tyler County, and started a recently formed Tourism Council said “the need to promote our county became very apparent.”

Polikretis, in his presentation, spoke about what the Texas Forest Trails group does. “We are here to promote the area. We offer a partner program and present a marketing initiative,” he said.

Polikretis explained the “ETX Traveler” web platform, which was launched about 10 years ago. It focuses on people, places and events, and allows entities and organizers to send photos and/or event descriptions to be posted and promoted through the avenue.

Polikretis worked in leadership and management for more than a decade in private, government and corporate sectors, prior to becoming the Texas Forest Trail Region, Inc. executive director. He said he is enthusiastic about working with, promoting and fostering regional economic development for the region.

The partnership program Polikretis gave information about is, he said, the financial backbone of the organization. Currently, the Texas Forest Trail Region non-profit receives only $70K annually from state allocations.

The program, which is a network of partners, ranging from individual donors to different entities, exists to foster regional economic development through promoting heritage tourism and historic/cultural preservation.

Polikretis said the program helps bring tax dollars and travelers to every county in the region, and provides various entities with tools, training and professional support needed to successfully market tourism sites.

He explained how analytics could be gathered from tracking the locations of cellphone users, and demonstrated that ability with analytics from visitors to Mount Vernon for a weeklong period.