ISHPEMING — The Greater Ishpeming–Negaunee Area Chamber of Commerce has launched a brand new site designed to help tourism in West Marquette County. VisitTheWestEnd.com is now up and running, and highlights some of the area’s best destinations for food and drinks, hotels, and attractions for visitors from out of town.

The new website is mobile friendly so it can be used on any phone or tablet, and it is helping fill a need for tourists who may be experiencing the area for the first time.

“It was one of those things where we get inquiries at the Chamber, ‘can we get this, can we get that,’ and we didn’t have a comprehensive way to explain all of that,” said GINCC Executive Director Bob Hendrickson. “There’s not enough brochures. So we thought throwing that onto a website was a very economical way to convey that information on a scale that pretty much covers the whole West End. So we have businesses from Negaunee, Ishpeming, Republic, Michigamme all listed on there.”

The new tourism website will not replace the GINCC’s website, but instead it will be a standalone site featuring hot-spots and information for travelers in the area. One special focus of the website, the variety of pizza available.

“We’ve self-proclaimed the West End as the pizza capital of the U.P.,” said Hendrickson when discussing the many different options for pizza around the area. “We thought that would be fun to include on the website, and we have Uncle Pizza, our pizza connoisseur, who gives his opinions on all of the pizza that he’s tested. The West End has always been known for having unique pizzas, and that’s something we wanted to portray on the website.”

All GINCC members can listed for free on the website, and businesses that are not members can also be featured on the website by contacting the GINCC at (906)486-1111, or contact them at www.gincc.org