WAUSA – Wausa area residents recently found out more about the “secret shoppers” who visited the village during the past year to evaluate the community’s promotion of itself and local tourist attractions.
A Wausa community tourism follow-up meeting was held on April 24 at the Lied Lincoln Township Library. This event had been scheduled to follow up a recent 2024 series of Knox County Economic Development community gatherings in various towns across the county.
The original community meeting about the Wausa and Creighton areas was held on March 28 at the Creighton Community Center and Inn.
Hannah McQuay of Wausa, who did not attend the original community meeting, was one of five community members at the follow-up event.
The other Wausa community members who attended were Brian ElDorado and Brad Hoesing, who were at the original community meeting, and Amy Burns and Allison Cunningham.
Dr. Kristin Malek, an event management specialist with Nebraska Extension, handled the presentation of information to attendees at the original community meeting and was at the follow-up event.
“We had some follow-up questions regarding Kristin’s original presentation,” McQuay said. “I found the follow-up discussion to be extremely insightful and we came up with a vague action plan.
“We hope to seek out feedback about Wausa’s marketability – What do we want Wausa to be known for? – and then reconvene once more at an unspecified date to continue the discussion,” she said.
Malek noted no new information was reported at the follow-up event, as it was mostly a question- and-answer session.
“The meeting went great – it’s always awesome to see a community take feedback and make an action plan from it,” Malek said.
At the original community meeting, Malek explained a variety of marketing, food and beverage, tourism, event planning and community development experts visited each community across the county to identify each town’s existing strengths, opportunities for improvement and possible future initiatives regarding tourism.
Ahead of their unannounced visits, these “secret shoppers” checked out community and business websites and social media, and then came to shop in local stores, eat at local restaurants, stay overnight in area hotels, connect with locals and take in other area sites and destinations. Malek shared overviews of these visits – made by members of the University of Nebraska- Lincoln’s First Impressions Program team from April 2023 to March of this year – during the series of original community meetings. These community visits and meetings were funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development grant. Each of Malek’s presentations on these community visits included pre-visit research findings, on-site impressions, post-visit reflections and suggestions for how each town could better promote itself, especially online. McQuay, who manages the website and social media platforms for the village of Wausa, noted she plans to get as much feedback as possible about Wausa’s marketability by starting with area organizations and then by reaching out to the community at large.
“I hope we can find a way to have Dr. Malek back in the future as we hone in on our strategy,” McQuay said. “At the moment, we’re taking it one step at a time.”
