Berks County Connection Podcast
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Berks County Connection Podcast
Berks County Visitors Bureau Rebranding
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Experience Reading & Berks County’s Executive Director Heather Zimmerman sits down with Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach to discuss the new branding and mission of that Berks County travel and visitors organization.
Welcome to another edition of County Connection. I'm your host, Berks County Commissioner Christian Leinbach, and we have a very special topic today. Just last week, there was an exciting announcement from our Reading Burks Visitors Bureau. And my guest this evening is the President and CEO of the Reading and Burks County Visitors Bureau, Heather Zimmerman. Heather, it's great to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01Today we're kind of talking about uh bringing it all together. Uh we often look at uh county, we're looking at industry, we're looking at education, uh, but today we're gonna look at the topic of tourism. And before we dive into the topic of tourism, let's talk a little bit about you and your background. Share a little bit uh about your background, uh how we can better understand you ended up in the tourism industry.
SPEAKER_00Well, actually, I ended up uh quite by accident, but you know, so thankfully. So I was um born and raised in Berks County, went to Y Missing High School in Cookstown University, and uh while I was a college student, I needed a job, and I applied at the uh former Sheridan Berkshire, which is now um a vacant hotel over in Wai Missing, and got hired at the front desk and um absolutely loved it. Um loved talking with everyone and getting to know our guests and the excitement. It was a big hotel with lots going on. So I stayed there um basically all through college and then um was going to pursue, you know, a job in my major was in English, so I thought, oh, I, you know, should pursue something in writing or in that field. And the hotel bug got me and I just stayed with it. So I worked in hotels for about 30 years and uh various positions. Um I then um helped open the Hampton Inn in Cootstown, which was part of the um the Cootstown Alumni Foundation helped get that off the ground. Um the Alumni Foundation also was the parent for the Cootstown Folk Festival. And um through that association I then became um the executive director for the folk festival for three years. So, and then um this position as president was um open due to a retirement, and I just felt that this really was the icing on the cake, you know, for my career, and um that's how I am here.
SPEAKER_01So I'm curious, the 30 years in the hotel industry, was that a mix of Burks and outside of Burks?
SPEAKER_00A little bit, um, primarily Burks. Um I also was a regional director of sales for a bit. Um my home base was here in Burks, um, but I also covered some hotels in York and uh Gettysburg at the time. So um, but uh most of my 99% of my career was spent right here in Berks County.
SPEAKER_01I I just think it's pretty incredible when uh we look at organizations and the presidents and CEOs when they pretty much are local homegrown uh leaders, and that's what you are. So uh you're at uh Cootstown, you're in charge of the folk festival. I think most people are aware COVID was devastating to a lot of events. Folk Festival was no exception. What interested you most about this job when you heard about it? And how did you hear about it?
SPEAKER_00Um well I was always associated with um the Visitors Bureau through working in hospitality and hotels and the festival. Pardon me. So I've known the team at at the Visitors Bureau for years and always had a positive, you know, uh relationship. I was on the board a few times and so forth throughout my career. So I knew the mission and I knew um in kind of intimately what the Visitors Bureau does. And um when the when the opportunity came up, I just thought this is like such a great way for me to try to help, you know, direct or give back or support an industry that is just near and dear to my heart. So I could not have the mo the I have the best team, um, the best support. And um it's I absolutely love what I do.
SPEAKER_01And I've watched over the years, I remember, and you may or may not remember this, when the visitors bureau was in that little almost like guard house over at VF when VF was going full steam, and it made sense because VF and probably Reading Outlet Center were the two number one attractions, neither of which exist uh today, or at least uh VF is still VF, but it's not what it uh it was at the time. Right uh to think where we've come. Uh and now you're in the new leader. When when did you take over uh in this role?
SPEAKER_00Last May, May 2024. So it's only been almost a year and a half.
SPEAKER_01So there's always an opportunity when there's a change in leadership. And uh it's a double-edged sword. Uh someday that's gonna happen when I retire and there'll be a a new commissioner uh take my place. But as you came into this role, I'm sure you had some thoughts and ideas, and those uh grew as you talked to other people. Uh what did you see coming in the door that you say, here are one or two things I I really want to address right away?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think uh the primary one for us um was our name, uh, you know, our name change. Um you know, certainly different organizations go through different changes and name changes and so forth, and I think it was time for us um to do the same. So um we are now um experienced Reading and Burks County, every stop um has a story. It really Say that again. Experience Reading and Burks County, every stop has a story.
SPEAKER_01Love it. Thank you. And for those that may wonder uh why we didn't say that in the beginning, I wanted to give Heather the opportunity uh to share that with you. Uh nothing to argue with the old name, but it wasn't descriptive of definitely who we were.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Uh and uh you had shared with me that uh early on in your time you were at various events and uh people would ask who you're with.
SPEAKER_00They're like, who okay, so where where are you from? And I would say, you know, Pennsylvania's Americana region, and they'd say, but where is that? And so I would say, well, you know, Reading and Burks County, some of them said, well, why don't you just say that? And I'm thinking, maybe that's true. You know, why don't we just say that? And I also think that um as the Visitors Bureau, you know, we're the champions of tourism. We do all the fun stuff um for the county and and bring uh visitors here to experience all the great, you know, fun activities we have and events and festivals and attractions. Um but I also think our name has to reflect our history, what who we are, um, be easily identifiable, um, particularly with all the activity that's going to be going on in Philadelphia next year. And we'll be talking about that. Yes. So uh we definitely want to make sure Redding is on the map.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and so our folks that are watching can see the logo right now. Yes. Uh it's actually a a perfect representation of not just the county, but the mission of what you do. Uh talk a little bit about what went into the process. Obviously, this isn't something you had a board meeting, came up with some ideas, somebody sketched it. This has been uh in the work works for several months.
SPEAKER_00It has. And you know, it started with a lot of conversation just internally. Um, and then we had uh an opportunity to meet with Red House. Um they're an agency out of Pittsburgh, and they handle a lot of um marketing and rebrands and so forth for different um DMOs, destination marketing organizations like we are. So um we I said to them, what do you think of our name? And they said, Well, we spent about the whole drive from Pittsburgh here talking about that. And I thought, well, that that's interesting. And so through a conversation, we just kind of ignited, you know, that with them, and they were like, hey, let's work together, and we said, we're ready, you know, we're ready to do that. What we liked so much about them was all the um research and analysis that they did. So it wasn't just us liking the logo that they presented. They presented several, um, but they tested them. They tested two different ones in our markets that we typically um pull from, like New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and so forth. Um, and then they brought that analysis and that data back to us. And um it was very eye-opening, and it really just it really like just further solidified we were going in the right direction.
SPEAKER_01It it's very exciting. I'm excited with the name. I'm also excited uh very much with the logo. How and what story is it that you want the new name, the new logo to help you better tell?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think the the new logo obviously has some iconic um images of of Reading and who we are, our deep roots in the railroad industry, um, which continues to this day with all the excursion trail rail uh train rides and so forth that we do. Um, the pagoda, our beloved pagoda, when uh when I was 18, 19 years old working in a hotel, I can tell you the first thing people said was, How do I get there? I want to see this thing. So, and then the you know, the bird representing our outdoor, you know, our rich outdoor offerings. So I think it's very important to tell who where we've been, but where we're going. And I think that this this symbolism there, it it sets us apart from our neighboring counties. And um, I think that every stop has a story, you know, harkens back to our railroad routes with the rail stops, but also everywhere you go here, you're gonna hear a little bit about who we've been, but what we're doing now.
SPEAKER_01So let's talk about that. Branding is about connecting, and you you you rightfully pointed out, not so much with your board, but with people that you want to attract to Reading and Burks County. What kind of an emotion uh or response are you looking for with the new name and the uh the new logo?
SPEAKER_00I think first and foremost, we want them to be curious enough to be like, well, what's this about? You know, I and you know, we could we appeal to just about every audience. If you're a foodie, we have we have we got you covered. You know, if you're into history, more than enough, you know, to keep you interested. So we want that feeling of, you know, I want to I want to come here, hear what that story is about. But I want them to come to Reading and Burks County and find out like a weekend's not enough. I have to keep coming back here because there's more things I'd like to uncover. Um, and I just didn't get a chance to do it all. And there's a lot of stories here to be told.
SPEAKER_01And there's there's so much. I you look at Berks, we're blessed in that we're not a San Diego that is it's all urban. Right. Uh or a a small county that's all rural. We have the fourth largest city, geographically central, surrounded by suburbs, and then rural. Yeah. So when you look at what there is to do, you mentioned food, the retail, but the uh ecotourism, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, Blue Marsh, Hopewell National Park, French Creek State Park, Rodale up in the northeast. And uh you look at the museums for the size of the county. You look at Reading Public Museum and their collection, absolutely incredible. But then go over to Boyertown and the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles, one of the most amazing collections I've ever seen. But there are also the events.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And there are a lot of events uh that take place. Let's focus on some of the events that are coming up. Uh, and let's start with the Blues Fest. What can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_00Yes, so that's um kicking off later in November. Um, and that will be uh prime a lot of the activity we centered around the Double Tree Hotel. But that's a multi-day event. Um, I believe it starts Thursday, the November 20th, it goes through the weekend, um, and that draws fantastic talent, um, wonderful um musical entertainment, lots of fun stuff to do around that. But the other thing we'd like to do as the Visitors Bureau is take you know all these fabulous events we have, but build onto that. So if you're coming in for a Friday or Saturday night musical performance, what else can you do prior or after to extend your stay here and check us all out? So that's one of our goals that we have is to build enough around these wonderful standalone events to create that longer stay.
SPEAKER_01And that's where we'll talk a little bit some of the tools that you have, your website, your annual publication, and uh how those reach uh a target audience. What about Kozar's Christmas Village, one of the classics?
SPEAKER_00It does not get better than that. You know, for k kids of all ages, you know, what a great way to kick off the holiday season. And such a quality place with wonderful, you know, uh holiday spirit atmosphere, it doesn't get any better. And we do see people, you know, who are just cannot wait for that to open. And we're so grateful that it's open for so many weeks, you know, even prior to uh Thanksgiving and and Christmas. So, you know, families can come in anytime to enjoy that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, in many respects, uh I I don't know how you were growing up, but uh my parents uh would take myself and my four siblings evening and just drive around and look at Christmas lights. My wife and I do that today.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01Here, you can do that in a relatively small area and see unbelievable. An unbelievable display light display. It's just pretty crazy. You already mentioned the focus on railroads and it's the history, it's also uh the efforts to bring passenger rail uh to Berks County. Uh-huh. Uh and that's going well, but talk to us about the Colbrookdale Railroad in eastern Berks County, and actually uh a little bit of it goes down into Montgomery County and Potsdown Borough.
SPEAKER_00Well, Colbrookdale as well as uh Reading and Northern, they have in an Auburn, um, Allentown and Auburn, they have fantastic excursions open, you know, you can buy your ticket. Um Reading Northern uh goes up to Jim Thorpe and back. Um you know, Colbert Dale has various uh, you know, dinner trains or apple cider donut excursion, who wouldn't love that? Um lots of stuff for the kids, you know, kind of like a Polar Express atmosphere. Um same with Allentown and Auburn in Coast Town. They do, I know they did a firefly train ride in the in the summer. They have a lot we have so much rich rail history and opportunity here. Um I think anyone from young families to season trail, you know, enthusiasts would love what we offer.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Uh a lot more than most. Uh most counties don't have any type of heritage railroads.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And we have three of them, and all of them have their own unique assets to attract uh visitors. Uh what about the Cootstown Historical Society Holiday Bazaar?
SPEAKER_00Well, I just think that's like a quintessential, you know, uh like uh idyllic Rockwell, you know, um type uh painting, you know, town, Cootstown, of course. And the Historical Society does a wonderful job with their holiday bazaar, and they bring in local artisans to participate. And um, if nothing else, is just a great way to go into that fantastic um historical, you know, uh capsule of all things Cootstown, and they've done a wonderful job with their exhibits there, and their train um yard is amazing, um, I think for adults and kids. So it's just a really great way to kick off the season.
SPEAKER_01And I think it's important for people to realize uh Berks County is loaded with artistic talent in so many different areas. It's not like sculpture or j painting, just absolutely loaded. Absolutely. Uh and we're blessed in that respect. And I think that's what makes things like uh this event possible. Of course. Uh finally, downtown, uh back, I believe, in 1997, the uh Convention Center Authority was established. The at the time Sovereign Center and the Sovereign Performing Arts Center were uh built and renovated. It's now today the Santander Arena and the Santander Performing Arts Center. How important uh is their programming and success, and they've been very successful uh to the overall tourism success here in Berks County.
SPEAKER_00Huge part. And I mean, the just the level of entertainment that they uh bring in to our county is top-notch. I mean, it really is. You can see, you know, huge name acts there, um, anything, you know, from rock uh concerts to, you know, children's activities and so forth.
SPEAKER_01To country. Uh I'll be going there surely.
SPEAKER_00Right. The Reading Royals. I mean, there's just so much. But I think uh more than that e is also the ability to bring some, you know, larger groups in town, events and so forth. Um we would love to do more of that uh and utilize, you know, the assets around the arena to create, you know, c like uh countywide or um extended convention business in in the area because the more longer someone stays, the more they're gonna spend.
SPEAKER_01And it creates memories. Uh sure it does. The only time my wife and I ever heard Tony Bennett sing live was at the Santander Performing Arts Center. And that's an experience that will stay with us. He was absolutely incredible, and he came here. That's right. So, in that context, a lot of events, a lot of places to go and see retail, eat food. Let's talk uh in the closing minutes about economic impact. The Visitors Bureau uh has a website.
SPEAKER_00We do.
SPEAKER_01It has a enormous uh publication from a distribution standpoint. What is the name of the new web website?
SPEAKER_00It's going to be experienceburks.com. And um our website, uh, you know, our launch happened and the website went live, but also our travel app, which is ExperienceBurks.
SPEAKER_01And I have that on my phone.
SPEAKER_00Yes, it's a great resource. So it's kind of like a uh mini version of our website, but it in addition to that, you can create itineraries for yourself or lists of places you want to hit when you're here. You can create all that um on that app, as well as we have um different itineraries to follow, trails, passport programs. So that's a great resource too. And um all that will have has our new look to it.
SPEAKER_01And your website already has tremendous traffic. Can you share a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_00We do well and it will is only gonna get better with the new name, too. Easily searchable, but we really try to make that as rich as we possibly can with all the information that um uh a local or you know a visitor could possibly want to orient themselves with the the area. Our perhaps our biggest um landing pages are events.
SPEAKER_01Um, I was just gonna say uh over the years, many entities and BERCS have tried to pull together a calendar of events. Right. Uh the Visitors Bureau has done that. I think that the new branding will make it even stronger. I think so, too. But then you have an annual publication. I believe the distribution on that is 180,000. Yes. Who is that target audience?
SPEAKER_00So that is going um, we are obviously all of our partners, we are a partnership-based um organization. So all of our partners receive the travel guides that they can distribute at at their businesses. But then we also distribute um well across the state through um getaways on displays, the brochure distribution. We also work with CTM, who um we are uh displayed from, I believe, Boston through Washington, D.C., all the New Jersey through the United States. Middle Mid-Atlantic, and then all the lots of major attractions in the film. Philadelphia, the countryside. So um and people, we have a very healthy mailing list of people who want that every year. That comes out in January. So we're right in the middle of it now, and we still have some space. If anyone would like to, A, become a partner or advertise with us, we have that available.
SPEAKER_01How does a business say, you know what, I need that type of connection? How do they become a partner with the visitors' bureau?
SPEAKER_00Margo DeRucci is our National Sales and Business Development Director. Um, calling into our office or even emailing Margo, and her information is on our website. That's the best place to start. And we will review with you, we'll learn more about your business and then the options that work will work best for you. And we're the best value, really. We're an extension of your marketing efforts. And our social media is is very active, and um we have lots of followers. We also do our own some our own videos and we go out and um talk to various partners and present them on social media. So it's the best deal you'll get.
SPEAKER_01Well, if anyone's interested, they can reach out, go to the website, experienceberks.com, or they can contact you at Heather at experienceberks.com. Uh very quickly, uh you are actively involved, you personally and uh Experience Reading and Burks uh Visitors Bureau with America 250. Uh real quickly, how are you participating in that?
SPEAKER_00Well, we really want to be the depositor or repository of all the events that are going on um to celebrate uh America's 250th uh next year. So we actually um we are taking any events that are occurring if and we have been sending this out to our partnership monthly, reminding them if they're having an event and they theme it, you know, to that theme, there's actually a drop-down uh space on our website where they enter their event that they can code it as an America's 250 event. And that gives us the opportunity to push that out in our social media, our monthly newsletters, and so forth.
SPEAKER_01So and our committee relies on your calendar to be able to do that. So that's fantastic. So 2026, that'll be a big, big year. Uh the biggest event that's taking place is July the 4th of 2026 at the Berks County Fairgrounds, the Star Spangled Spectacular with the RSO, several other bands, and fireworks. Uh but then in 2027, you're already working with us and the county on the county's 275th anniversary and really we'll be doing the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we can, yeah. So it's really cool that America's 250, you know, it the it's great timing because it's a great lead-in, and uh we have we'll have a great template in place and be able to really promote, you know, 275th as well as we do the 250th or better, because we'll learn, you know, how to better do things. But um we're looking for events and some of these events, you know, if if if let's say, for example, Jazz Vest, if they theme it, they can still have Jazz Vest, but if they put that theme in there, that's good. We can get that out there.
SPEAKER_01So it's part of the reason. In the last 30 seconds, what's your vision for five, ten years from now for experience renting in Burke's visitors bureau?
SPEAKER_00I would like to just see obviously see our uh tourism spending as a county increase. I'd love to see a year-round um asset of some sort in Burks County that uh supports our hotels on a year-round basis, um, occupancy-wide. Um and I I would just I'm so excited about Reading's future. You know, we I I I'm not of the mindset of focusing on what we lost, like the outlets and so forth. Let's let that happen. So let's focus on the future. So we really are just excited to be part of the momentum of um bringing great things to Reading and Burks County and helping to get the word out there.
SPEAKER_01Well, you clearly are part of the momentum. Uh the new name, the new logo, which we can see again. Uh I'm just excited about the future. Uh if you want to get in touch with the Visitors Bureau, we have uh the information, their address, as well as the website, experienceberks.com. If you want to get in touch with Heather, Heather at experienceberks.com. Heather, thank you for being our guest. Thank you uh for allowing us to further promote the brand new branding for Experience Reading and Burks. Thank you for joining us for another edition of County Connection. I'm your host, Burks County Commissioner, saying thank you, and I'll see you the next time on County Connection.