Destination Lake Winnebago Region… Now what the heck is THAT?!?

Chamber of Commerce? Nope! Festival Committee? Way off. Downtown Development? Wrong again. Economic Development? Getting warmer. Run the livestock competition in the Cow Palace each year at the County Fair? Ice cold.

Destination Lake Winnebago Region is the official Visitors Bureau for our area and yes, we work closely with all of the above including our friends at Envision Greater Fond du Lac, the Downtown Fond du Lac Partnership, and Fond du Lac Festivals.

In industry terms we are a Destination Marketing Organization: think of us as the sales and marketing office for Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and what we call Lake Winnebago’s East Side. Our job is to bring more visitors here – driving economic growth not through manufacturing, but through tourism and hospitality.

Here’s the interesting part, Destination runs entirely on bed tax. Lodging guests pay a small tax on overnight stays, municipalities collect it, the state statute earmarks the majority for tourism marketing, and that funding flows to us. No local tax dollars involved. And Fond du Lac’s bed tax is the lowest in our competitive set. Not bad.

That’s the textbook answer to “What is a Visitors Bureau?” Ask our team- Lisa, Liz, Sam, Erin, Edith, and Craig – and you’ll get something simpler: we’re the liaison between travelers and the lodging properties, businesses, organizations, and people that make this Region worth visiting. We also know that a community has to be a great place to live before it can be a great place to visit, so promoting quality-of-life work issues in Fondy is part of the job too.

One last thing – why “Region” instead of just Fond du Lac? Because Lake Winnebago is enormous, (visible from space, no exaggeration) and visitors don’t care about county lines – they care about what’s cool nearby. To get the full story, you have to look from the Woods to the Wetlands, the Ledge to the Lake. Think regionally, or you’ll miss half the good stuff.

Destination Lake Winnebago Region. C’mon in.