About

Joanne Steele, Owner and CEO

“Mrs. Steele’s depth of knowledge of the assets and special needs of rural regions help me to craft a plan that lead to our establishing a new Rural Tourism Manager position at the state level. Her knowledge of the tourism industry, innovative ideas for partnering to maximize small budgets and insight into how a new state position could help all of Califonria’s rural regions moved me to action.”

Caroline Beteta, Executive Director

California Travel and Tourism Commission

Joanne has spent the past 14 years helping small tourism related businesses and rural communities develop clear, targeted and effective marketing programs.  While representing Siskiyou County, California, she maximized a limited marketing budget, generating over $4 million equivalent press in state, national and international publications. The visitors’ bureau web site created by the RTMG team was used by the California State Tourism office as a model for rural areas.

As the Internet revolutionized travel marketing, Joanne helped small communities and locally owned tourism businesses learn how to use the web to effectively compete in the greater tourism industry. She has created innovative marketing systems that address the special needs and concerns of rural communities committed to developing a sustainable tourism economy for their area.

Successes:

• Spearheaded, along with the local resource conservation development organization and 20 byway communities, the 6 year process to achieve National Scenic Byway status for the 500 mile long, Volcanic Legacy All-American Road.
• Director of Tourism for Siskiyou County, California, 1999-2009
• Worked, along with associate, Diane Strachan of Positive Futures, and Jefferson Economic Development Institute on the creation of the innovative Stewardship Tourism Project, which creates partnerships among visitors and local businesses to fund sustainable tourism projects in local communities.
• Maintained an email newsletter to provide hundreds of businesses with the latest information regarding media and Internet marketing.
• This blog will expand RTMG’s reach, sharing effective, affordable, state of the art marketing ideas to rural tourism businesses throughout the online community.