Tourism: An Important Part of the What the Oil Region Alliance Does

| October 1, 2017

OIL CITY, Pa. (EYT) – One of the important roles played by the Oil Region Alliance (ORA) in the region is promoting tourism.

(Photo: The Tarbell House in Titusville is one of the tourist attractions owned and operated by the Oil Region Alliance)

“We have the role of promoting tourism entities in the region,” said Marilyn Black, Vice President for Heritage Development for the ORA.

“We also have the role of helping businesses and nonprofits and municipalities literally develop, appreciate, care for and preserve the attractions throughout Venango County and the Eastern Corner of Crawford County.”

With the dual purpose, the ORA not only champions the tourist attractions of the region, but it is also responsible for some of those entities and directly owns some, as well.

“Some of the historic properties we own include the McClintock-Steele-Waitz home (aka the Coal Oil Johnny House), the Tarbell House, the Neilltown Church, and the Downs Building in Oil City,” Black said.

Located in Cornplanter, the Coal Oil Johnny House was constructed in the 1850s. In 2001, the building was disassembled and then rebuilt a little less than a mile from its original site to preserve it as an example of pre-oil boom, post-and-beam construction.

The Tarbell House, in Titusville, is a two-story Italianate home that was constructed in 1870 as the family home of Franklin Tarbell, his wife Esther, and their three children, including Ida Minerva Tarbell, the eldest child. Ida Tarbell attended and graduated from Titusville High School and then Allegheny College before entering the field of journalism and what today would be called investigative reporting.

Located near Pleasantville, the Neilltown Church was built in 1842.

Drake Well Museum and Park, in Titusville, the site of the first commercial oil well in the United States, is another popular tourist site in the area, as is the Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad.

“The railroad goes from Titusville’s Perry Street Station to Rynd Farm at the south tip of Oil Creek State Park,” Black said. “It’s an excursion railroad that carries up to 500 passengers in any given run, and they are continuing to have a ridership of over 18,000 people a year. Their season is June through October.”

While landmarks and the railroad are popular tourist destinations within the county, so too are the natural wonders of the region.

“We are seeing a huge surge in the water usage and specifically kayaking,” said John Phillips, President and Chief Executive Officer of the ORA. “I think the last couple of years the numbers have gone up. Just the sheer number of people coming down the waterways has tremendously improved.”

It doesn’t hurt that one of those waterways, the Allegheny River, was named the 2017 Pennsylvania River of the Year.

Along with the waterways, there is the Erie to Pittsburgh Bike Trail which sees in excess of 185,000 people per year who enjoy the trail and the beauty that goes with it.

“We see over $7 million annually just on our section of the Erie/Pittsburgh Trail, which is huge,” Phillips said.

People can both bike and hike the trail, and there are interpretive panels placed in various locations along the trail.

“The panels help people understand the oil field equipment along the trail they are seeing,” Black explained. “They also point out key people and key events that happened at those various locations.”

Additional outdoor recreational tourism in the region includes hunting and fishing.

“I think there is a nice mixture,” Phillips said.

One of the ways the ORA has helped promote the trails and other outdoor locations in the region is through a geocaching program that was created in 2007 and has seen a resurgence of late.

“It’s a high-tech treasure hunt using a GPS unit,” Dan Twombly, Executive Vice-President of the ORA, said. “It gets people going out into the woods and other recreational areas.

“We regularly get people coming in and asking about it. It is still popular and still being used.”

The ORA has spent a lot of time marketing and developing the different assets in the region.

“The marketing side of it is one piece and the development side is another,” Phillips said. “That makes us a bit unique. I talk to my colleagues in Crawford County and with the PA Great Outdoors, and they market their areas and market their assets. We market our assets, but we also develop our assets.”

Starting in 2011, the ORA changed its focus to an asset-based economic development approach.

“We asked, what are the assets we have that we can utilize right now,” Phillips said.

The ORA takes a varied approach to marketing the different assets the region has to offer.

“We may do some advertising in Outdoor Recreation News for instance or publications and online marketing that targets the demographic we are going after,” Phillips said. “The thing about it is we have so many broad things to offer all the way to the arts and culture that we cross-market a lot of that.”

The ORA also utilizes its websites (www.oilregion.org and www.grabtrails.com) as marketing tools.

“The Visitors Guide is available there for instance,” Black said.

Phillips said one of the challenges is marketing to such a broad constituency that includes everyone from Millennials to Baby Boomers.

“You have multiple different types of communication going on as the age groups age,” Phillips said.

The ORA uses social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin to reach out across the broad spectrum.

“We try to target the main ones,” Phillips said. “Who uses what changes. It fluctuates pretty rapidly.”

The ORA also partners with local governments.

“I think for the most part we couldn’t do what we do without the support of the local governments,” Phillips said. “Our local governments have been very supportive. We do a lot of joint grant applications and, of course, we cross support things they are trying to apply for with support letters and things like that.”

According to Phillips, with 34 distinct municipalities within the region that the ORA cover, educating the local governments is important as well.

“Keeping them all abreast and informed is important,” Phillips said. “I think we have a great partnership with our municipalities. Of course, some of them work with us more in-depth than others.”


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