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

Aren’t you guys the Chamber of Commerce? Nope! Festival Committee? Way off. Downtown Development? Wrong again. Hey, you folks are the Economic Development group, right? No (but getting warmer). Ok, one more guess, you run the livestock competition in the Cow Palace each year at the County Fair? Cold!

Destination Lake Winnebago Region is the official Visitors Bureau for our region. And actually, we do work closely with our good friends at the Chamber of Commerce & Economic Development (called Envision Greater Fond du Lac), and our friends at the Downtown Fond du Lac Partnership, and of course our friends at Fond du Lac Festivals & Waupun Festivals.

Destination Lake Winnebago Region –or Destination— is what is often referred to in the tourism industry as a Destination Marketing Organization. Our organization is sort of like the sales and marketing office for Fond du Lac, Waupun, and Beyond. Our primary goal is to attract more visitors to the area. As noted above, we are similar to a traditional Economic Development Organization in that we are driving economic development, however, not through manufacturing and retail, but rather through economic activity in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Here’s an interesting fact, Destination’s sole revenue stream is from Bed Tax. Here’s how it works; there is a very small tax on all overnight stays, assessed by the lodging establishment, collected by the municipality, parsed in accordance with the state bed tax statute –the majority of the revenue earmarked for tourism marketing— and finally, forwarded to Destination to fund our full range of sales and marketing efforts.

Put more succinctly, no local taxes fund DLWR. Additionally, the bed tax in Fond du Lac and Waupun is the lowest in our nearby competitive set. Pretty cool, huh?

So, that is really the textbook description of who Destination is. If you would ask the individual team members –Lisa, Liz, Darcie, Erin, Liz, and Craig – the answer would be a little less wonky. To a person we all feel like we are the liaison between the traveler and our Region’s lodging community, businesses, associations, churches, schools, and individuals.

There is also the keen understanding here, that a community must first be a vital, vibrant, and dynamic place to live, for it to be a great destination for visitors. Destination serves organizationally and through the service of individual team members, to promote quality-of-life issues and initiatives throughout the Lake Winnebago Region.

So, one final thought on the broader topic of what the heck is Destination. Why the reference to Lake Winnebago as the “Region” and not Fond du Lac or Waupun specifically? Well for one reason Lake Winnebago is one darned BIG lake.  It can literally be seen from space and serves as an awesome place-marker. The second reason is visitors never really care about city or county borders, they just wanna know where the cool stuff is. Yes, Fond du Lac and Waupun proper have a ton of cool stuff.  But, if you REALLY want to get the full story about this slice-of-heaven, you gotta look from the Woods to Wetlands, and from the Ledge to the Lake. Unless you contemplate this destination as a REGION, you are going to miss out on so many fun, beautiful, sweet, charming, tasty, and unforgettable elements.

Destination Lake Winnebago Region. C’mon in.