Information for Community Partners

Summarized here are ANCA's Scenic Byway resources of particular interest to the communities and resources interested in the promotional benefits of being on or near a Scenic Byway:

• Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways Market Trend Assessment
• Appendix for the Market Trend Assessment, including respondent comments
• Suggestion Form for ANCA's Scenic Byways Website
• Link button image - right click on the image to save or copy to a website or blog; link it to: https://adirondackscenicbyways.org/
  
  

On this page, items of interest to community partners include:

• Overview of the Scenic Byways Website
• How Scenic Byway Communities Can Benefit from Scenic Byways Promotion
• Adding a Scenic Byways Website Link to Your Website
• Policy on Links from the Scenic Byways Website to External Websites
• Submission of Photographs

Scenic Byways provide access to some of the most desirable and treasured resources across northern New York. The Adirondack North Country Association (ANCA) and other Scenic Byway planners are working to get the word out on the special assets that make up the Byway experience. Scenic Byways are about “shared visitation” where the route itself serves as the destination. ANCA launched the regional Scenic Byways website in 2009 with an initial set of three of the region’s Scenic Byways: Adirondack Trail, Central Adirondack Trail, and Olympic Trail. Each of those Scenic Byway offers a variety of pleasurable stops that contribute to an appealing, collective touring experience.

Main Goals of the Scenic Byway Website

• Provide significant state, national, and international exposure for the region’s Scenic Byways that will serve to attract more visitors to the region. Through visitor recognition and understanding of byways’ role as touring routes, they will build consumer awareness of the North Country Scenic Byways, foster appreciation of the region, and heighten interest in visitation to Scenic Byway communities.


• Fill a major information gap since there is currently no online source of comprehensive, current, detailed information about the Scenic Byways that wind through numerous small communities and past the spectacular natural resources of the Adirondack Park, the largest state park in the continental U.S. The information will introduce new and repeat visitors to a journey through a “Place” that happens by moving from community to community across the region.


• Encourage visitation and extended stays by providing prospective visitors an attractive view of what the Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways have to offer, with a primary focus on the communities, the environment and the culture of the region.


• Offer attractive, easy to use travel planning tools so that prospective visitors can conveniently research, plan, enjoy, and share the exceptional experiences available along the scenic touring routes.


• Keep the website content fresh and responsive to visitors’ diverse interests by working with local communities along the Scenic Byways to update information about annual events, recreational activities, natural resources, attractions, and other features of interest.


• Direct visitors to the specific travel and tourism websites of local, county, and regional entities where more information can be found on the commercial activities available locally, including lodging, dining, shopping, attractions, tours, outfitters, guide services, and other commercial tourist activities. The website connects the public with “tourism experts” via web links so that the Internet audience can make contacts and request specific traveler information from Chambers of Commerce and other tourism offices serving the various byway locales.


• Establish linkages to community pages, stewardship organizations, environmental groups, not-for-profits, cultural organizations and other non-profit or community agencies and organizations.


• Produce a state of the art website built around findability, usability, flexibility, and relevance, four essential ingredients for a successful website of this type.


• Make other Scenic Byways-related publications available for viewing and download.

What the Scenic Byway Website Is Not Intended to Be

• It is not a tourism website in the same vein as most state and regional tourism sites where lodging, dining, and vacation packages are heavily promoted in the form of Where to Stay, Where to Eat, and Where to Shop. The Scenic Byways site will link to local and regional tourism websites that offer those services.


• It is not a place to book reservations or purchase a travel package, although an increase in those types of sales should result because of the many links to websites that do offer those types of tourism services.


• It is not a complete travel planning website from start to finish. It is a wider window on the diversity of the communities, activities, and spectacular scenery that comprise the Scenic Byways travel experience, while clearly linking to local and regional tourism websites where more travel planning details can be found.


• It is not a comprehensive community calendar, so while it will feature some of the major, annual events along the Scenic Byways, users will be directed to local and regional tourism websites for more complete community calendars.

The Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways Website is intended to fill gaps in online travel and tourism information for the region’s communities, while not duplicating the excellent travel information that is available. To that end, the website has its focus on the communities, the public and non-profit activities they offer, their cultural traditions, the region’s scenery and scenic views, its outdoor recreation opportunities, and of course the Scenic Byways that connect them all together.

How Scenic Byway Communities Can Benefit from Scenic Byways Promotion

Each community on the featured Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways has a description on the website. There also are a number of listings for a community's public or non-profit attractions, activities, and annual events that are of most interest to visitors.

Communities can benefit most from the community descriptions and resource listings if they:

• Review community descriptions and provide suggestions on improving them.


• Review the Scenic Byways resources associated with a community and provide updated information.

If you have suggestions for the Adirondack Scenic Byways website pertaining to a specific community or resource along one of the three Scenic Byways, we have developed an online form to facilitate and ease the process of submitting and reviewing that information. ANCA appreciates your taking the time to submit comments, suggestions, corrections, and other ideas on the following Survey Monkey form: Adirondack Scenic Byways Website Suggestion Form

Another way to benefit from this increased promotion of the Scenic Byways is to align online a community's online branding more closely to the Scenic Byways' approach to online branding. ANCA completed a survey of over 300 Scenic Byway visitors in 2009 and there were a number of popular themes appreciated by many of the visitors, including:

• Outdoor recreation
• Enjoying scenic view of lakes, forests, and mountain
• Driving through the area and enjoying the scenery
• Visiting Museums or Historic sites
• Getting out on the water

They also mainly enjoy activities that:

• Take place outdoors
• Are relaxing
• Are family oriented
• That offer a change of pace

The complete 2009 report is available online:

Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways Market Trend Assessment

as is the Appendix which includes most of the respondent comments.

One main purpose of the Scenic Byways website is to encourage users to click over to local and regional tourism websites for additional information on the featured attractions, activities, and events, along with the information on lodging and dining which is not provide at all on the Scenic Byways website. Communities are encouraged to feature local lodging and dining opportunities prominently on the home page of your website. In addition, prominent links your local attractions, activities and events are also strongly encouraged. You might review the resources for your community identified as Scenic Byway resources, and add descriptions of those to your website if they are not there already.

Adding a Scenic Byways Website Link to Your Website

Another way to increase the benefit of the Scenic Byways Website for all communities is to increase the number of websites that include a link to https://adirondackscenicbyways.org. Search engine ranking improves as the number of links to a website increases, and that includes the ranking for each individual page on the website. A Home Page link is most valuable and links on multiple pages are valuable as well. Each of our Community overview pages includes links to the local and regional tourism websites that feature that community. The result is that increased visibility for the Scenic Byways site translates to increased visibility for local Chambers as well as for regional tourism promotion efforts.
We encourage all links to use the top level, home page URL rather than one of the lower level pages. The Scenic Byways site has a user-friendly design that allows users to find the communities and activities of most interest.

The appropriate link to use on your webpage is: https://adirondackscenicbyways.org

We also have a link button that conveniently allows you to add an attractive link to your webpage for the Adirondack Scenic Byways website. Right click on the image below to save or copy the image for use on your website.

Policy on Links from the Scenic Byways Website to External Websites

The Adirondack Scenic Byways Website provides links to other websites on a case-by-case basis for governmental agencies and associations, tourism organizations and councils, and not-for-profit organizations that demonstrate a core relation to the mission of the Adirondack North Country Association’s Scenic Byway Program.

The purpose of the Adirondack Scenic Byways Website is to gain visibility for the Adirondack North Country Region, the Scenic Byway travel routes and the officially designated Scenic Byway communities. The website also targets the promotion and stewardship of the natural, historical, cultural, recreational, and scenic resources that are in the public domain or operated by not-for-profit organizations. The website currently features Byway resources in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Montgomery, Oneida, St. Lawrence, and Warren Counties.

A non-governmental organization that serves residents in one or more of those 14 counties may be considered eligible for linkage if it satisfies one or more of the following criteria: The applicant engages in tourism, economic development, civic endeavors, community development, environmental stewardship, or operates a library, cultural, or educational facility.

The selection of approved linkages will be made at the sole discretion of the Adirondack North Country Association and links can be removed at any time.

Submission of Photographs

ANCA encourages communities located on one of the featured Scenic Byways to submit high-quality photographs for possible use on the Scenic Byways website. The images shown must correspond to some feature or activity occurring in or near a Byway community featured on the Scenic Byways website. Minimum requirements for the photos include: high quality, high resolution, compete usage rights assigned to ANCA, approvals from recognizable individuals, and specific information about the view shown such as location, time of year, main geographic features, closest community, etc. The photos need to be in the landscape orientation, than portrait.

The policy for accepting photos for display corresponds to that of the Resource Information Guides outlined above. Photos having their primary focus on a for-profit business are generally not acceptable. Photos will be reviewed on a case by case basis. The selection of approved photos will be made at the sole discretion of the Adirondack North Country Association and they can be removed at any time.

Photo availability can be conveyed to ANCA using the Survey Monkey form referenced above for submitting suggestions and changes for the website. That form is located at: Adirondack Scenic Byways Website Suggestion Form

Considerations for Use of the Byway Names, Logos and Artwork for the Adirondack Trail, Central Adirondack Trail and Olympic Scenic Byways

The Adirondack Trail Scenic Byway, Olympic Scenic Byway, and Central Adirondack Trail Scenic Byway names and logos are the property of New York State Department of Transportation.

A Byway logo is used to mark those routes, sites and resources that are part of the official State Byway system. The design and artwork may not be altered or redrawn in any way. The assigned logo color may not be altered. Specific instructions regarding the graphic use of the logo may be found in the Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways Graphic Standards Manual.

Extensive research has gone into branding the individual Adirondack North Country Scenic Byways and ANCA is working to insure that the marketing of Byways upholds the high standards that are now in place as involved stakeholders move forward to promote their section of the travel routes.

The name and logo may be used with permission on printed informational materials that relate directly to the Byway such as maps and interpretive brochures that are distributed free of charge. The name and logo may also be used with permission on Internet websites that that feature Byway Communities and provide information to travelers. Examples: municipal and tourism office sites.

The Adirondack North Country Association has not authorized or considered the use of the logo by for-profit entities for the Adirondack Trail, Central Adirondack Trail and Olympic Scenic Byways. Commercial enterprises may advertise that they serve Byway visitors but the use of the logo remains under the sole discretion of the Adirondack North Country Association.

Other incorporated Byway organizations have permitted the use of the logo by supporting members only, thus allowing the Byway organization to capitalize on the logo. This use has not been authorized for the Adirondack Trail, Central Adirondack Trail and Olympic Scenic Byways.

Please direct all questions pertaining to the use of the Byway names and logos to the Adirondack North Country Association at 67 Main Street – Suite 201, Saranac Lake, New York 12983. Application forms for use of the logos are available upon request by calling 518-891-6200 or email us at sobrien@adirondack.org.