Lexington-area tourism group beefs up marketing in wake of Red Hen controversy
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
LEXINGTON — Rockbridge Regional Tourism approved a recovery plan to boost its marketing after The Red Hen restaurant controversy brought a slew of negative national media coverage this summer.
The regional tourism board, with members from Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County, met with the Lexington City Council on Thursday for an update on tourism initiatives and numbers.
The board had initially approved the recovery plan soon after news of The Red Hen controversy was spreading across the country. At the end of June, the restaurant’s owner declined to serve presidential press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders when she visited the restaurant.
Sanders tweeted the day after the incident that she had been asked to leave because she works for President Donald Trump. Soon after, Lexington was flooded with protesters who stood outside the restaurant, chanted and held signs. Others posted both positive and negative reviews of the restaurant online.
All three localities met and decided to pull together emergency funds to increase digital marketing and spread positive messages of the area, especially Lexington, which brings in the largest number of tourists.
Director of Marketing Patty Williams said the area is still feeling effects from the controversy — the tourism office received a letter Thursday from a family in Georgia who said they would never come back to the area because of what happened. And during the immediate aftermath of the incident, the tourism office received thousands of phone calls and emails.
“For a town our size, it was a significant impact,” Williams said.
The tourism office also decided to conduct a perceptions survey in its top four markets — Roanoke, Richmond, Norfolk and Washington, D.C. The office is working with a survey company to find frequent travelers living in those areas to answer questions about whether they recall the incident, where it took place and whether it would affect their decision to travel there. A total of 400 people will be surveyed.
The responses will help indicate where marketing money should be spent and what kind of messages need to be sent out, Williams said.
Tags
Who is online
222 visitors
Too bad that's obviously a lie.
It's hard to tell. The regional tourism office seems to have been forced into a corner and has to do damage control for the entire region due to the national ruckus that the anti-Trump owner of the Red Hen caused.
Well, at least as far as the staff and management of Red Hen goes, it's a lie. The owner wasn't even in the restaurant at the time. She was at home and the staff called her. She got in her car and drove to the restaurant to kick out Sarah Sanders. That's some energetic level of hate.
Is that what her father said? You know that's not true, right?
Please provide a link showing that the Red Hen owner's father commented on this topic. Please read the seeded article before you try to do so. Thanks in advance.
No, I was talking about the lying fat cow pig Sarah Huckabee Sanders' father.
Why would I be talking about the owner's father? That doesn't make a bit of sense.
Sarah does a lot of lying and her father does too. And he's a so-called Reverend.
P.S. I was talking to Tacos, not you.
And, Tacos was replying to me when you intervened. Your point?
BTW - former AR governor Huckabee isn't remotely on topic. I'll let you slide this time.
I thought you might want more comments on this seed! No problem! I'm out.
[deleted]
[You are not supposed] to [post a comment that has been updated.] That is [WHY we give] you [10 min] to [think things over] and [take them back.]
[Removed]
No, it's what the owner herself said.
The owner of the Red Hen explains why she asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave
So, it is true. She was home and felt it necessary to drive to the restaurant to kick Sanders out. Just like I said.
I surmise that your assumption that it's not true means you agree with me that her reaction was excessive.
What does it matter that the restaurant was 200 miles away from the White House?
I disagree - it was not excessive. Her restaurant, her choice, to ask the lying bitch to leave. It wasn't hateful either.
In the earlier story when it had just happened - Huckabee's father lied about Sarah being heckled and followed and being harassed in the restaurant itself. She asked her privately for Sanders and her party to leave.
That's what isn't true - the heckling and the harassing.
You'd have to ask the writer at The Washington Post.
And yet you didn't want for it to be true.
I didn't say anything about that. I only mentioned the part you saw. And that's what you responded to.
I mistook your comment for what her father - Sanders' father - lied about - the heckling and the harassing, which is a lie.
Now I'm done.
Toodles!
Your strawman fails and you flee...
Translation: Oh shit what have we done? How do we bring the conservatives back so we can prosper again? LMAO!
Although I agree with yours and 96WS6's comments, please be careful when posting NT's emoticons. Seeders are flagging emoticons as "off-topic". I got an "off-topic" ticket today on a different seed only because I posted the "thumbs up" emoticon to someone's comment.
Come see the "Red Hen". Most "Haunting" building in the county.
the Red Hen hurt the whole area
Isn't that a typical proglib maneuver? Cut off your nose to spite your face?
Can you say "nuclear option"? LMAO!
Yeah, that's it in a nutshell.
I've been there numerous times over the years. It's a nice town with nice people.
There always seems to be one or two grumpy kids that ruin it for the rest of us.
Everyone has a right to free speech, but businesses are in the business to provide some type of service. When they stop doing that and try to turn thr business into a bully pulpit, they must deal with the fallout from it. It's always a double-edged sword. Nike is finding it out now, as Dick's is finding it out also. The smart businessman or businesswoman understands that business is about business and not about making employees feel good about the patrons. If she has a greast policy about equial treatment of employees and an upbeat employmnet atmosphere, great-if you push away business, purposely, then you live with those consequences-the problem, her decision to come in and do this: she also affected other businesses as many now chose to spend there money in other geographic areas than wehere she is, which hurts them.
Well said. The actions of Red Hen's owner set in motion far more than expelling Sarah Sanders from her small restaurant. The owner's actions affected the tourism success of the entire region.
Sadly this is becoming the norm for the left. They haven't learned form the nuclear option that they need to supress their fits and sometimes they can't get their way for the collective good.
These dumb asses never learn and will keep shooting themseves in the foot. Look at how well Nike's new stunt worked for them.
Yeah they initially lost like 4 billion in market capital in one day. Think they are still down like 2-3 billion today last i looked.
Go New Balance!