In November Governor Glenn Youngkin announced that Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) awarded more than $300,000 for 64 local and regional tourism marketing programs across the state to help increase off-season visitation to tourism businesses and destinations.
RVA Happy Hours is excited to announce that we’ve received a $5,000 grant for our showcase of minority-owned RVA Happy Hours. Through the campaign, RVA Happy Hours will partner with other local businesses to supply matching funds for the project that will aim to bring off-season business to minority-owned restaurants in Richmond.
The Microbusiness Marketing Leverage Program is part of VTC’s strategy to grow year-round visitation in Virginia and is designed to support small tourism businesses with marketing dollars to drive out-of-state visitation during off-peak travel seasons. We are excited about this program because we see it as a gateway for small businesses to engage with VTC’s marketing and development ecosystem to grow their business and build on the Virginia is for Lovers branding,” said Rita McClenny, President and CEO of Virginia Tourism Corporation.
The VTC Microbusiness Marketing Leverage Program is designed to increase visitor spending in the off-season by leveraging limited marketing dollars, stimulating new tourism marketing through partnerships, and extending the “Virginia is for Lovers” brand. This is a new program that focused on supporting tourism businesses with less than 20 full-time employees through marketing partnerships. A minimum of three Virginia entities must partner to apply for the microbusiness marketing grant. Partners may consist of Virginia cities, towns, counties, convention and visitors’ bureaus, chambers of commerce, other local or regional destination marketing organizations, private businesses, museums, attractions, cultural events, and other tourism-related businesses.
