Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau receives $200,000 in grants to help with photos, website and visitor profile

HANNIBAL, Mo. — The Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau will receive more than $200,000 from four grants from the Missouri Division of Tourism.

The Convention and Visitors Bureau always applies for the annual Marketing Matching Grant. However, the bureau, like others around the state, also applied for multiple Platform Development Grants in addition to the Marketing Matching Grant.

The grants received were for a visitor profile study, visual asset development and website development.

“Supporting Missouri communities in their efforts to promote attractions and events is one of our top priorities, and it’s vital to the statewide travel industry,” Missouri Division of Tourism director Stephen Foutes said in a press release. “We have partnered with Hannibal through our cooperative marketing grants since 1995, and we’re happy to see Hannibal’s continued success with the programs.”

The visitor profile study grant will give a clearer, research-based picture of Hannibal’s visitors, including top origin markets, average length of stay, most popular Hannibal locations and opportunity markets.

The visual asset development grant allows the CVB to capture new professional photos and videos for advertising, social media website and media requests.

The web development grant will help pay for the cost of a new website for the Hannibal CVB. The goal is to create a best-in-class tourism website with an improved user experience, leveraging Hannibal’s visually compelling assets to convert website users to in-market visitors. 

“These grants are a huge asset to Hannibal,” Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau director Megan Rapp said. “They have allowed us to do in one year what would have taken several budget cycles to accomplish. Professional responsive websites, research and visual assets are large expenses. The fact that we will them all this fiscal year puts us in an even stronger position to showcase Hannibal to our potential visitors.”

The grants were open to designated marketing organizations around the state.