Destination Smart

A Sustainable Tourism Management Framework

The Destination Smart approach strives to balance the needs of the industry and area residents, provide education to visitors, leverage our events to create revenue streams for member nonprofits or initiatives, and foster infrastructure projects and initiatives that maximize sustainability.

By following the Destination Smart approach to our vibrant tourism industry, we ensure that it continues to contribute to the health and well-being of our city, our region, our economy, and our environment while adhering to our mission to promote commerce, tourism, the Bavarian theme, economic development, diversification, and cooperation in the chamber membership area.

The five properties of the Chamber’s Destination Smart are Funding it Forward , Visitor Flow Management, Communication & Monitoring, Destination Development, and Climate & Resiliency.

Funding It Forward

  • Finding creative ways to ensure that when we using lodging tax funding for events, those events contain a fundraising opportunity for a local cause or member nonprofit.

  • Financial support for events, not produced by the chamber, that add to the Bavarian Theme, meet a need on the calendar where visitation is low, and/or create an added benefit to the community.

  • Financial support for projects that help embellish, restore or add to Leavenworth and the membership area.

Go to the Funding it Forward page to learn more.

Visitor Flow Management

  • Designing events to reduce negative community and regional impacts

  • HELP Reduce impacts and provide visitor services at highly visited recreation locations in our region.

  • Champion traffic, transit, parking and trail expansions and improvements

Communication & Monitoring

  • Provide destination education to visitors through our Give a Schnitzel Campaign.

  • Use visitor data to make data informed and targeted marketing and event planning decisions.

  • Monitor our destination by collecting visitor data to gauge economic and environmental impacts and what dates to target for additional events or programming.

  • Collaborate with other organizations to increase event and marketing efficiency by taking advantage of established platforms and campaigns.  

Destination Developement

  • Champion responsible destination infrastructure projects or events to enhance or expand opportunities and offerings.

  • Invest time, support, and/or funding for programs that strengthen workforce development and workforce housing.

  • Provide Investment and support for projects that have dual benefits for visitors and residents.

Climate & Resiliency

  • Having our events and destination work towards being zero waste.

  • Maintain and expand current cameras that hold up to 30 day’s worth of footage and assist the city and Sheriff’s Depart with investigations and with prosecutions.

  • Support expanded recycling in the Leavenworth area.