“The Grand Haven Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is a 501(c)(6), and our primary goal is to educate and inform potential visitors about why they should choose us as their vacation destination, and we also do a little bit in terms of small meetings and reunions. The visitor center provides an opportunity to provide additional information to visitors about area businesses, attractions, and the things to see and do. We’re that friendly, welcoming face that can inform them about their options while traveling to or through our community.
But what we do doesn’t only benefit tourists. We help people who live here to be ‘tourists in their backyard’, as it’s easy to get caught in a rut and forget about all the cool things we have here. We also help maintain this economy. Residents enjoy a variety of businesses that are available here, but those businesses, particularly in the downtown, would not survive on citizen revenue alone. The tourism economy plays a significant role in maintaining those businesses year-round.
We refer to ourselves as kind of the quintessential all-American beach town. We’re surrounded by water and natural resources, and we have an amazing amount of public access to those resources. But there are some unique assets to this community that other beach towns don’t have. We have the lighthouses, and I serve as the Vice President in the Lighthouse Conservancy.
We also are home to one of the world’s largest musical fountains of its kind, and there’s not a fountain like it anywhere in Michigan.
And then we’ve got our Coast Guard festival, which is a big deal: more than 125,000 people visit on the final day, and I think next year is going to be our 100-year celebration of this community’s connection to the Coast Guard.”
—Marci Cisneros, Grand haven Area Convention and Visitors Bureau
