Visit Bemidji Launches First Major Tourism Study In 20 Years

The folks at Visit Bemidji are hoping to persuade more tourists to come to town. That’s why they’re launching a big survey to figure out what exactly will draw them in. The last big visitor survey was done 20 years ago in 1997, so the city was due for an update.

“The survey that we are going to soon be launching is going to kick off in early December, which is in a few days and it’s actually called an interceptor survey,” says Visit Bemidji Executive Director Susan Goudge.

Six survey assistants will be all over Bemidji in the next 12 months, asking visitors why they came to town. There are 45 locations where surveyors will be set up. The locations range from restaurants, hotels, and stores to popular attractions like ski resorts and the famous Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox Statues.

“We are working to build our leisure travelers and business travelers and increase the quantity of them so that we can offer a huge economic impact to the Bemidji community area,” says Goudge.

The whole point of the survey is to figure out why people come here, and then hopefully with that data we’ll be able to get more people to visit.

Goudge adds, “It’s going to help up identify areas of interest for economic development and areas where visitors would hope that we would have an expansion on our infrastructure.”

The simple way the community can help is to stay friendly.

“The best thing about Bemidji is we really have such spirit of our community and that we all are really effectively being ambassadors of our community, so there isn’t really any particular thing that the general public can do except continue with their gracious and welcoming good manners,” says Goudge.