Online visitors worldwide will soon have access to virtually the entire Lake to Grapes region represented by the Greater Bridgman Area Chamber and Growth Alliance or CGA, as they are known for short. The Chamber debuted the kick-off of what they are calling the SuperTour 360 — a virtual tour of the entire community that can drill down to each individual business or organization in town for a fly-by tour of the business itself both inside and out.
Bridgman is the first community-wide group in the entire region to adopt the work of Ron & Shelley Barger of Classic Communications of Niles. The public relations and marketing agency has laid the baseline groundwork with a wide-ranging aerial tour by drone of the Lake to Grapes neighborhood of Bridgman and neighboring Lake Charter Township, both of which are members with the Chamber of the CGA organization.
Calli Berg is Executive Director of the Bridgman CGA. She tells me the baseline aerial tour “creates a backbone for a virtual tour, from the sky, around the entire community, that allows anyone with an interest regarding any specific piece of property or a business who participates with the CGA to drill down, and it becomes like a street level view through Google.” Classic Communications is a Google-approved provider who will create a site specific 360-degree video both inside and outside of participating businesses.
Berg says a restaurant, by way of example, can not only provide the 360 tour, but also have immediate hot links to their menu, their website, phone number and other data that pops up on the tour so viewers can learn as much as they want whether they’re already in town, planning to come to town, or if they’re half way around the world and thinking about relocating to, or vacationing in, the Greater Bridgman area.
Chamber members are now being approached to help populate the virtual tour with click stops of their own individual businesses and organizations on variously priced, tiered levels ranging from Bronze to Gold with each successive package plan offering a few more video options and other amenities for the individual business.
Calli Berg and the Bargers at Classic Communications can be reached for details at 269-687-9128 for Classic Communications or 269-465-4413 for Calli.
For the Bridgman CGA Treasurer Bob Clark said, “We had a very good year.” He says that thanks to the solid year, they actually added $8,000 to the organization’s bottom line reserves. He noted however, they have to be cautious every year because a large portion of their revenue is festival driven between the Weko Beach Wine Festival and the Annual Brewers Fest.
While the Wine Fest had a banner year with a veritable capacity crowd, the Brewers Fest hit the one-two buzz saw punch of Game Four of the World Series with the beloved Chicago Cubs in action and the legendary football rivalry of Michigan vs. Michigan State. Crowds were down dramatically as a result, and Clark says, “We actually incurred a bit of a loss.” Nevertheless, thanks to the record-setting wine event, they still ended up beating the combined revenue of both events from the year prior. The Brewers Fest will be moved up a little to avoid potential conflicts this year.
Clark says that with the huge success of The Haymarket Brewery, the impending arrival of a Lazy Ballerina Tasting Room downtown and many other business successes and destination attractions, the parking pinch is beginning to be felt on occasions.
Three CGA board member’s terms expired this year and they were thanked for their service including Todd Dockerty who was at the meeting and Steve Parsons and Katie Lemon who were unable to attend. The now 12-member board is a bit more nimble, and they meet monthly on the second Thursday of every month.
The same slate of officers for the organization was re-elected including:
- Tim Kading — President
- Brett Boyd — Vice President
- Bob Clark — Treasurer
- Pat Heyn — Secretary
Shown looking at the new SuperTour 360 product on a large screen in the photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market.com are (from left to right) Jim Zielke and Lisa Zielke from Zielke Homes & Improvement in Bridgman and Shelley and Ron Barger from Classic Communications in Niles.
