The Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development solicited, reviewed, and selected grantees for the COVID-Safe Travel Grant program. The grant is a multi-award grant designed for rapid-deployment of marketing campaigns to promote Alaska as a COVID-Safe travel destination for Summer 2021. The COVID-Safe Travel Grant allows for marketing efforts to target in-state, independent, national, or international travelers and markets. State of Alaska non-profit entities were invited to apply with an application deadline of May 10th.
The Kenai Peninsula Tourism Marketing Council was among the entities across the state to receive a grant award, receiving a $410,000 grant for quality, overall responsiveness, ability to deploy a marketing campaign no later than June 15, 2021, and regional representation.
Shannon Davis, Vice President for the Kenai Peninsula Tourism Marketing Council’s Board of Directors:
“The Kenai Peninsula Tourism Marketing Council has been conducting Kenai Peninsula Borough marketing for the Kenai Peninsula Borough for over 25 years. In the climate that we’re in, we’ve had some retractions in Borough funding, but there are a lot of opportunities that were available to organizations like KPTMC to help the struggling tourism industry because, really, I think COVID has hit the tourism industry on the Kenai Peninsula harder than any other industry. We were currently working with the marketing company called MSI Communications to fulfill the remainder of our 2020 grant with the Kenai Peninsula Borough. So, we already were in a position with MSI to put together a proposal to apply for the COVID-Safe Marketing Grant and we submitted that and just were informed, last week, that we were selected to be awarded the grant. We’re incredibly excited. We’re hoping that we can really use this money to move the needle for tourism for the Kenai Peninsula Borough this summer.”
The other entities across the Kenai Peninsula to receive a grant include the Homer Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center, which was awarded $253,489 and the Seward Chamber of Commerce, which was awarded $179,000.
