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Award winners from Thursday's Grand Lake Region Visitors Center annual awards reception are pictured left to right: Mercer County Community Development Director Jared Ebbing, Heritage Trails Park District Executive Director P.J. Fought and local professional crappie fisherman Matt Tuttle.
CELINA - With last year's lodging receipts up 23% over 2023, more people than ever before are visiting the Grand Lake Region, visitors center executive director Matt Staugler announced at the organization's annual awards reception Thursday.
"It's the highest year-over-year increase in 15 years," he said to the more than 25 area government officials and economic leaders in attendance. "And a record overall for total gross revenue."
Per the area's 2023 tourism economic impact report issued by the state, visitor spending in Mercer and Auglaize counties totaled $267.9 million.
"It also reported that visitor spending supports over 3,200 jobs in Mercer and Auglaize counties," Staugler added. "That's over 5 and a half percent of all jobs in Mercer and Auglaize counties (that) are directly supported by visitor spending. So if there's any question in our area that tourism is big business, it absolutely is."
To maintain that momentum, Staugler said the visitors center recently published a 2025 Grand Lake Region Visitors Guide, which he said offers a new look and leans into inspirational content.
"We want this guide to be part of the decision-making process that convinces visitors to come to our area," Staugler said. "We printed 22,000 of these guides that go all over the state. We've already distributed 18,000 of them."
The guide features 49 pages of "engaging photography, and new features like a top 10 list of must do things for visitors," Staugler said. Also inside are interviews with Auglaize County Commissioner Doug Spencer and even a cow called Doc from MVP Dairy in Celina.
Another innovation implemented to keep people visiting is the use of travel influencers, Staugler said.
"We're working with more influencers this year, including Brandy Gleason," he said. "Brandy is a travel writer, author and founder of the Ohio Road Trips Facebook group that some of you might even be members of. It has an audience of over 1.2 million people. Brandy's actually here today. So Brandy, thanks for being here. Thanks for what you do for us."
The most visible shake-up at the visitors center is its new "Grand Lake Region" branding campaign.
"During the ideation phase of our brand refresh, the concept of space kept coming up," Staugler said. "We obviously have wide open spaces here in our region, plenty of space to stretch out and relax on Ohio's largest inland lake and even have a piece of space at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapak. It's what led us to lean into our area, being the only place in the world where you can soak up the sun on one side of our region and literally see a piece of the moon on the other."
As well, the visitors center is leaning into humor with its new marketing campaign, featuring signs that say "Key West? Nope - West Ohio," and even putting up two billboards in the neighboring Indian Lake area for a little friendly competition.
"I've liked getting the comments from the folks who live at Indian Lake (that) drive by those every day. That's been fun," Staugler said.
Also the group has released a new commercial for 2025, which is running in ads on YouTube and on streaming services such as Amazon Prime, Hulu and Paramount Plus in their target markets. The visitors center has also expanded its target area to the Columbus market for the first time.
"(We're) competing directly with places like Indian Lake and Buckeye Lake for those visitors. That central Ohio audience is one of the largest in the entire Midwest. And we think we've got a pretty compelling product to get some of those visitors to come spend money in our region as well," Staugler said.
The group's innovation is paying off, he continued, sharing some online data.
"While it's a quick snapshot in time, the initial results have been very promising. Our reach on Meta in April - so Facebook and Instagram - was up 88%, versus April of 2024," Staugler said. "And we had over a million content views on Meta just in April. Web traffic is also up 26% compared to this time last year. And if you think what (was happening) at this time last year, it was the eclipse. So there were a lot of eyeballs on our area, and so we're 26% above what web traffic we were grabbing even at that time. So people are clearly connecting with our new messaging."
Awards given
Also at Thursday's event, held at MVP Dairy in Celina, the visitors center presented its Ambassador Award, which goes to an area individual that made significant contributions to the local tourism industry, and the Stahl Award, which goes to an area group, organization or company for their outstanding contributions to the development of local tourism.
The 2024 Ambassador Award was handed out by Mercer County Commissioner Brian Miller and presented to local professional crappie fisherman Matt Tuttle.
In addition to writing a regular fishing column in The Daily Standard, Tuttle "has greatly contributed to every aspect that makes our area a great place to live, work, learn and visit," Miller said.
Miller added that Tuttle embodied a commitment to Grand Lake by traveling the country as a professional fisherman and carrying the flag for Grand Lake in the region.
"I have heard him publicly state many times over that there is no other lake in the country that offers the numerous amenities that can be accessed by boat at our Grand Lake St. Mary's," Miller added.
When you love to do something so much, it doesn't feel like work, Tuttle said of fishing at Grand Lake.
"We have something so awesome out here, and our lake is so beautiful," he said. "I have the coolest job ever. I get to get up every day and decide where I'm going to fish and how long I'm going to fish."
Also, St. Marys Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Angie Tangeman presented the Stahl Award to the Heritage Trails Park District of Auglaize County, which "has contributed greatly to the area's tourism offerings. This organization has been around since 1996, connecting locals and visitors alike with nature and working to preserve those areas for future generations," Tangeman said.
Recently, the organization achieved a long held goal of securing levy funding to expand its impact, including the securing of more lands for conservation trails across the county, and more resources and programming to visitors of the area.
The award was accepted by HTPD Executive Director P.J. Fought, who said big plans are in the works to expand the district to all over Auglaize County.
"We want to be a countywide park district because this is the Auglaize County Park District," he said. "It's not St. Marys, it's not Wapak, it's not Indian Lake, it's Auglaize County."
Lastly, Southwestern Auglaize County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sara Topp, who will serve as the visitors center board president in 2026, presented an award to the center's current president, Mercer County Community Development Director Jared Ebbing, for the two years he has served as president.
While board president, Ebbing oversaw the transition from the center's longtime executive director Donna Grube to Staugler, and was "a great leader for all of us to follow going into that position, especially someone like me," Topp said.
Ebbing said holding the position has been an honor.
"It's a great board to be part of," he added. "I'm just grateful to be president for two years, time flew and I look forward to being on the board for years to come and seeing all the growth that this region continues to show."
For more information on the Grand Lake Region Visitors Center, go to seemore.org.
