Michelle Kim started this week as Executive Director of the Galesburg Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau
Not only does has she been behind marketing efforts with Costa, Cherry Street Bar and Restaurant, Knox County Housing Authority to name a few, but she’s been eyeing the tourism job for a while.
She started asking about the job in the summer when the job came open and eventually things fell into place.
Kim has been a Chamber ambassador and also been involved through different places that she’s been employed at.
She inquired about the tourism director job when it became vacant last summer and says eventually “things fell into place.”
Kim disagrees with the sentiment that Galesburg has nothing to promote in terms of tourism, “So when you’re looking at something permanent you’ve got things like Discovery Depot Children’s Museum, you’ve got the Railroad Museum, we have Carl Sandburg’s Birthplace. So we’ve got a lot of permenant fixtures in Galesburg. And then we have events… things like Railroad Days, Taste of Galesburg.”
She says she’s getting right to work, hoping to organize some small conferences.
With her starting in her new office at Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, she’s bringing a more modern approach to promoting Galesburg events and attractions.
She says that they’re past the days of simply taking out an ad in the newspaper being enough, “Now we’re looking at national magazines, websites, different digital marketing packages, and things like that.”
Continuing with the emphasis on technology, Kim says their website needs an update to make it more informative and user friendly.
Kim says that Galesburg has more visitors than some may realize.
For example, she says that Galesburg has more people getting on the Amtrak than even a community like Naperville.
