On Sept. 27th Canal NY held a media luncheon. This year’s event was held at Pier A, an historic restaurant located in Battery Park City, overlooking NY Harbor. The event was attended by over 30 travel writers and journalists who enjoyed a great meal and presentations by or member sponsors. One of the first known benefits from the event was a live radio interview that I could participate in with Dan Schlosberg the host of Travel Itch radio. Here is the link http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ndbmedia/2016/10/14/travel-itch-radio to hear the show. The marketing committee will be following up with each of the travel writers who attended the event over the next month to coordinate future projects.

Canal NY’s next scheduled event will be the NY Times Travel show held each January at the Javitts Center in Manhattan. This year’s event will be held on January 27^th – January 29^th. Canal NY will be among the more than 500 exhibitors and more than 30,000 visitors that annually attend the event. Canal NY will be offering more opportunities than ever for its members to promote their businesses and organizations. Look for more information coming soon

Our biggest project yet is the development of the www.discovertheeriecanal.com web site. The site being built by Canal NY will be “the tourism site of the Erie Canal” The site is live now with what is called a splash page. A splash page is basically an announcement of what is to come. The project has been in the discussion stage since the beginning of the year and with the approval of the board we created a logo and “mock ups” for both the landing and community pages. What makes the Canal System great are the communities, and this site will focus on them. Each community will be encouraged to participate in the creation of its community’s section on the site. It can provide articles about how the community was connected to the Canal from the early days to how the community relates to the canal today. Each community page will have a directory of traveler resources. These directories will be built with the assistance of the community and members of Canal NY will have enhanced listings that will allow these organizations to provide complete descriptions of their businesses, location, contact info, and map location. Visitors to the site will be able to create a personal page where they will be able to plan their trip to the canal. There they will be able to save to their favorites page those businesses or venues that they would like to explore further prior to their visit.

Want to get involved. We’re looking for content about your community or organization. Want to be the lead person in your community? Let us know and we will show you how to get started in building your community page. Are you a historian? Want to get involved in creating the history side of the site. Or are you looking to learn how to create your organizations featured listing. Just contact us and we will get you started