On December 14th, Rockbridge Area Tourism held a workshop at the Virginia Horse Center to gather input for their recently received DRIVE Outdoor Grant. The DRIVE Outdoor Grant was awarded by the Virginia Tourism Corporation and builds on the recently completed DRIVE 2.0 Statewide Strategic Plan. The goal of the workshop was to determine next steps for outdoor recreational product development in the Rockbridge Region. DRIVE Outdoor funds can be used to enhance outdoor recreational development, assets, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Rockbridge Area Tourism invited Rockbridge Outdoors members as well as other community stakeholders to attend the event.
During the meeting, the group conducted a competition analysis of similar outdoor recreation markets, and determined priority outdoor recreation product development opportunities for the near term, over the next two years, and a five-year strategy. The group settled on a final ‘hub and spoke’ model that determined a primary tourism lure, outdoor products to sustain and enhance, and two new outdoor product concepts.
More information on DRIVE Outdoor can be found here: https://www.vatc.org/driveoutdoor/