St. Mary’s County Division of Tourism launched its new website, www.visitstmarysmd.com, on June 1. The site features a fresh look and new marketing message – “Real People. Real Places. Real Close.” – to promote the best St. Mary’s has to offer visitors and residents alike. The website was developed through a partnership between the Division of Tourism, the St. Mary’s County Department of Information Technology, CDF Web Solutions, LLC., a web design firm based in Rockville, Maryland, and Enten Marketing, Inc., also of Rockville.

The new site includes many new features, such as an interactive map, trip planner and searchable events calendar. It also offers continuously updated listings of county restaurants, accommodations, shops, events and attractions.

Local tourism and hospitality businesses and attractions are invited to provide and update their own listings through an interactive feature on the website. Tourism partners can edit their businesses’ information; allowing them to add content, photos, events and special deals. This feature provides site visitors the most up-to-date information on things to see and do in St. Mary’s County, while giving local tourism and hospitality businesses a powerful new marketing tool.

The site enhances the County’s web presence as a travel destination, with the objective of attracting more visitors and generating greater economic returns. As St. Mary’s County tourism manager Carolyn Laray notes, “The new site gives us a wonderful way to showcase all that our beautiful county has to offer while making leisure travel planning easy and fun. Because our local tourism industry stakeholders can manage their own listings, the site will bring a whole new level of local industry engagement which should have a very positive effect on tourism growth in the county.”

The new travel and tourism site is being publicized with an online campaign and sweepstakes in the Washington D.C., Baltimore and Annapolis markets, which promotes weekend travel to St. Mary’s.

For more information, contact Rebecca Lira, St. Mary’s County Tourism Coordinator, at rebecca.lira@stmarysmd.com.