KEWEENAW COUNTY — Anyone in the Keweenaw peninsula can tell you that tourism and logging are the leading sources revenue for the local economy, but how did that come to be?

Logging- that’s pretty simple. We have a lot of land, and not a lot of people so that makes lots of forest available for harvesting lumber.

Tourism is a whole other deal. Geographically, this place has so much to offer a tourist: excellent skiing in the winter, the shorelines of Lake Superior in the spring and summer, Copper Harbor and Isle Royale, and then there’s the rich history of the copper boom.

With so much to see and do here for a tourist, it’s the task of the Keweenaw Convention and Visitors Bureau to ensure that tourists enjoy their visit enough to come back again and again. The KCVB is once again on the cutting edge with another product that does just that.

“You know when a tourist walks into your establishment and they come up and the ask where’s the nearest waterfall? And your front desk goes ‘Well, I don’t know…’ That leaves a really bad impression of our area. For our front-of-the-house people to be able to say ‘Hey, go up and check out the falls in Eagle River!’ or, you know, and give them some direction. It makes for a much better experience. They’re more apt to come back and we’re starting to roll this out to output local businesses,” said Dianne St. Amour, the president of the Keweenaw Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Copper Country Certified is an online course that business are encouraged to enroll their employees in and its free of charge, and can be completed on your own time rather than accommodating a classroom schedule. The goal is to get people who work in the service industry all on the same page, so that the tourist is left with a good impression of the Keweenaw, and naturally would want to come back and explore even more on their next visit.

The visitors bureau has used the cyber world in other ways to promote and assist tourists who come to the Keweenaw, including downloadable trail maps and mobile friendly documents, and a mobile app highlight area attractions. More information can be found HERE or HERE.