Something i’ve always wanted is to get more international guests staying  at the Brewster Inn here in Dexter Maine. We’ve always had a small amount find us on the web each year BUT i wanted to work harder again to get more. In 2009 i signed up to be part of the contingent of attractions and accommodations group representing Maine  at the annual getting together  from all the New England States at the Discover New England international tourism summit where they all  promote their business and area in short 8min meetings to a large group of US and European based receptive and tour operators from countries such as UK, France, Italy and Germany.

The “buyers” as i’ll call them are broken into groups like the ” receptives” that are companies that make the tour packages for the trade such as Travalco AlliedTPro and Tourmappers . These are all  companies that the Brewster Inn has contracts with now to supply our product to the world tourism market.  There were many tour operators there too like  Bon Voyage and Audley Travel and America As You Like It

Already in  3 summits as i’m now just back from the latest one held at the Omni Mt Washington resort in NH we have a total of 5 receptive contracts with hopefully a couple more contracts to come. The bookings are coming in with just last year alone about 40 room nights from the contracts that we now have. Each year should get better and better as following on from the 27 meetings that i had at this years summit, i’m now talking to the tour operators about who we have contracts with that they can buy from and what packages we are planning on putting together so that when guests come they can experience real Maine like waterfall tours, bald eagle watching and other nature tours, white water rafting, snowmobiling or hiking to name just a few.

Attending the DNE summit as a small tourism related  business in Maine is a great way to network and show off our part of the USA to the world. Its hard work, takes a lot of planning but the long term benefits for the Brewster Inn could and hopefully will be significant. I’ll be at the next summit in 2012.