Thousands of cars pass through Bee County each day.

Some drivers stop in Beeville but most pass on through.

The Bee County Chamber of Commerce wants more of those drivers to stop in Bee County and spend their money at local motels and businesses.

However, for that to happen, the chamber’s Convention & Tourism Bureau needs help from the people and businesses in the area.

“Just as with your business, once you’ve identified your product you need to market and sell it. And then constantly monitor the changing needs of the customer,” Isabel Ramirez, tourism and events coordinator for the Convention & Tourism Bureau, told chamber members during a luncheon on Friday. “Together, with an independent consultant, your Bee County CVB has undertaken a destination audit to identify existing Bee County products that, when properly marketed, will attract tourists.”

Here’s the complete text of Ramirez’s remarks.

“Each day more than 10,000 cars travel on U.S. 181 and some 6,000 on U.S. 59 (in Bee County). Where are they going?

Yes, some of those (people) work in Beeville, but I’m certain the majority are merely passing by, going to some other destination.

But what could possibly attract them elsewhere?

Maybe they’re taking their children to a ‘Zoo Snooze’ at the Victoria ‘Texas Zoo.’ There, they can enjoy dinner right in the zoo, a nighttime tour and movies with popcorn until it’s time to sleep under the Texas stars with the animals nearby.

Or, perhaps, they’re going to root, root, root for the home team — the Astros — during a fun weekend in Houston.

Maybe their cruise control is set and they’re heading for a jet plane ride. But there are no peanuts on this flight. Rather, their trip includes a battle to destroy Iraqi tanks and scud missiles. The entire family can experience the ‘Desert Storm Strike,’ a flight simulator on board a real World War II aircraft carrier, the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi.

Or maybe they’re heading for a romantic stroll, dinner at a unique restaurant and overnight stay at a boutique hotel along the world famous Paseo del Rio in San Antonio.

The purpose of the Bee County Convention and Visitors Bureau is to identify a reason for some of those thousands of drivers on the highways to want to stop and stay awhile, and to spend their money in Bee County. Isn’t that what you want, too?

We also have an important responsibility to the state of Texas for the prudent management and use of the local Hotel Occupancy Taxes assigned to the CVB.

As the Texas Office of the Attorney General Reminds us in their “Handbook on Economic Development Laws for Texas Cities,” every expenditure of the local hotel occupancy tax revenue must directly enhance and promote tourism and the convention and hotel industry.

The Attorney General says, ‘In other words, the expenditure, must be likely to attract visitors from outside the city into the city or its vicinity and must have some impact on convention and hotel activity.’

We take this responsibility seriously. And we make certain that overall the CVB expenditures meet the statutory requirement.

I want to share with you what we are doing to maximize the funding and other resources of the CVB to generate even more tourist revenue back into Bee County.

Just as with your business, once you’ve identified your product you need to market and sell it. And then constantly monitor the changing needs of the customer.

Together, with an independent consultant, your Bee County CVB has undertaken a destination audit to identify existing Bee County products that, when properly marketed, will attract tourists.

To kick off the process, we asked a diverse group of some 40 area residents to meet with us as part of a Tourism Task Force to explore just what a visitor could experience in Bee County.

The Tourism Task Force was asked to design a Bee County itinerary for a visiting friend to include places to eat for all their meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner — and things to do during their stay, from Friday night until they departed after breakfast on Sunday morning.

The process was definitely an eye-opener. Collectively, the Tourism Task Force shared their appreciation for what Bee County has and doesn’t have to offer a tourist.

Now, our next step is to meet in smaller stakeholders groups to focus on target visitor markets, such as cultural arts, heritage and nature tourism.

We know that Bee County doesn’t have a zoo, a Riverwalk and boutique hotels, an aircraft carrier or a professional baseball team, but we can offer our own Bee County experience to visitors.

The stakeholders groups will be looking at what we have to offer and the quality of our tourist products. Plus, we’ll see what we can combine or ‘package’ together to make an even more compelling reason for someone to want to visit Bee County.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by packaging.

How many of you have ever purchased a McDonald’s Happy Meal? The Happy Meal box contains a burger, fries and drink. Plus, the most important item, a toy.

Each of the food items can be purchased separately; but when they are combined or packaged it creates a new product for the McDonald’s target market: children — children, who will whine and beg their parents to go to McDonald’s.

Of course, Mom and Dad will also buy something themselves. Now that’s good target marketing.

Taking the same packaging concept, let’s look at what we can do in Bee County to create a new or enhanced experience for our tourists.

Some of you may be aware that we occasionally have a ‘fly-in’ at the Beeville Municipal Airport. This small event automatically generates some local revenue if the pilots and any passengers plan to stay overnight. They may also purchase fuel for their plane, and any food that’s available at the airport was hopefully purchased locally.

Now, since we already have some pilots coming to Beeville for the fly-in, what if we leveraged this event by creating another reason for the pilots and their passengers to do something else while in Beeville?

We could package the existing fly-in with outer tourism products and enhance the overall value of the fly-in experience and possible increase the tourist revenue in Bee County.

What if we organized a downtown clothesline art show of our talented Bee County artists? Local shops and restaurants would be open for the fly-in pilots and their passengers to enjoy and anyone else who drove in for the art show event. What if we included our talented Bee County-area musicians to entertain during the event?

Of course, a shuttle service would be provided every half hour to and from the airport to downtown Beeville to make it easier for the ‘fly-ins’ to spend their money in Beeville.

By packaging our existing tourist products — a fly-in, area artists, our retail merchants, restaurants and musicians — we have created our own Beeville Happy Meal.

Oh, and don’t forget the toy in our tourists’ Happy Meal. How about a discount coupon book from participating merchants to encourage tourists to stop into your place of business and to spend their money?

Each product could exist on its own, but when packaged together we will have expanded the possible tourist markets for each product while creating an overall new tourist experience — the Beeville fly-in weekend.

Of course, whether it’s a fly-in or something else in the package, it will require appropriate research, target marketing and selling to attract interested tourists.

I hope you understand the approach your CVB is taking to maximize Bee County’s existing tourist assets.

As business people, I know you all appreciate the value of positioning your product in the minds of your prospective customers against your competition. The same is true in marketing a destination such as Bee County. We must position Bee County against other destinations, from which our prospective tourists can choose to visit and spend their money.

Have you ever thought of this marketing angle? Even before our most recent economic challenges, not everyone could afford a long weekend to a destination such as Corpus Christi, Houston, San Antonio, or even Austin.

However, if we remind them — through target marketing — that Bee County is their less expensive alternative for that relaxing weekend getaway from the stresses of daily living, we’ll be attracting yet more tourists to our community who may have never considered Bee County before.

The result of our destination audit will be a new marketing plan that focuses on what we can do well with our existing tourist resources and limited marketing money. Plus, it will include what we may be able to naturally develop over time to add to our tourism assets.

Keep in mind that we’re not going to be promote Bee County to the world. That doesn’t make sense. Rather, we will fish where the fish are biting and target only those tourists who have a likelihood to travel to Bee County.

When the marketing plan is completed, we will also launch a new Bee County Convention and Visitors Bureau website: visitbeecounty.org. This new site will market Bee County 24/7 to interested tourists by representing all the unique experiences we can offer them.

Additionally, a periodic online survey will begin to collect valuable visitor demographic date for future marketing initiatives.

Though many of you travel outside Bee County, you probably never considered Bee County a tourist destination and what tourism could mean to our economy.

Today, it means some $30 million into our local economy and 360 jobs for our friends and neighbors.

Nationally, the travel and tourism industry annually generates more than $240 billion. And each year in Texas, the travel and tourism industry pumps $56 billion dollars into the state’s economy.

We want more of these dollars coming and staying in Bee County.

But your Bee County Convention and Visitors Bureau can’t do it alone. You can help too.

Many of you belong to a state or national professional organization. These groups, whether it’s an association, fraternal or religious organization, hold frequent regional meetings. Ask the group’s leadership to meet in Bee County.

We’ll work with you to develop a short presentation on why Bee County is the perfect (location) for their next meeting. Not only will you be providing a great meeting venue for your colleagues from around the state, but you’ll also be helping the economy of your own community.

In fact, let’s work together to see how we can maximize the use of our beautiful community center, right in the middle of downtown Beeville, so when those folks attending the meeting take their breaks they can wander into your stores and restaurants and spend their money. Or, how about we look at how to maximize the use of our great Expo Center for appropriate new tourist functions?

I hope you understand now why we are celebrating the significant contributions the travel and tourism industry makes, not only to our nation and to Texas, but how much more it can contribute to Bee County.