Economic Development

The non-profit art and culture industry in Northwest Connecticut generates an average of $34 million in revenue each year and supports over 800 full time equivalent jobs. 

The arts are also a major driver for tourism to the region, and are the main focus for increasing tourism through the regions Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS).  We are working in collaboration with the Northwest CT Council of Governments and the Northwest CT Chamber of commerce on the areas of focus outlined in the CEDS plan:

Creating a coordinated regional marketing strategy

This includes developing cohesive branding by establishing and communicating our regional identity.  We are working to help identify our target audience, refine our message, and then disseminate that message in a coordinated effort including social media and other targeted outreach. The focus of the CEDS plan is on the importance of getting a majority of the tourism, arts, culture, governmental and chamber organizations to agree on a unified marketing strategy.

Create a collaborative, regional web-based event calendar 

Constituents have expressed frustration with the need to post events separately on multiple event calendars. Instead, focus group attendees liked the idea of being able to post an event  in one place and the event would then get pushed out to all other event calendars in the region for which that event is appropriate.  For this reason, we are completely integrating our online events calendar with DiscoverLitchfieldHills.com to create an arts-focused calendar for the region.