Bellmont Partners Selected for Duluth Tourism Marketing, Expands with Duluth Office

As the new year quick­ly approach­es, we’re excit­ed to offi­cial­ly share the news that Bell­mont Part­ners was select­ed by the City of Duluth for its tourism mar­ket­ing, begin­ning in 2022. As long­time vis­i­tors to Duluth our­selves, we’re thrilled to be putting our years of tourism expe­ri­ence to work for the city in what is tru­ly a dream assign­ment. Bell­mont Part­ners is part­ner­ing with Lawrence & Schiller (L&S), a lead­ing mar­ket­ing agency with offices in Min­neso­ta and South Dako­ta, to offer excep­tion­al inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing capa­bil­i­ties to sup­port the City of Duluth’s tourism goals. Addi­tion­al­ly, our agency is expand­ing with a new office in Duluth, which will allow for an even deep­er con­nec­tion to the Duluth community.

“We’re excit­ed to work with Bell­mont Part­ners and Lawrence & Schiller as Duluth embarks on a new chap­ter in tourism mar­ket­ing,” says Duluth May­or Emi­ly Lar­son. “As we ele­vate the brand of Duluth and attract new vis­i­tors, their data-dri­ven, sto­ry­telling approach will help us high­light the many attrac­tions, neigh­bor­hoods and hid­den gems our com­mu­ni­ty has to offer.”

Part­ner­ing to ele­vate Duluth

Fol­low­ing a com­pet­i­tive RFP process that drew 28 appli­cants from across the coun­try, the Duluth City Coun­cil vot­ed to approve Bell­mont Part­ners as the selec­tion committee’s pre­ferred ven­dor in August 2021. Bell­mont Part­ners and L&S will begin a $1.8 mil­lion annu­al con­tract Jan­u­ary 1, 2022. In addi­tion to work­ing close­ly with the City of Duluth’s lead­ers, our teams are also look­ing for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Vis­it Duluth, which has served as the community’s des­ti­na­tion mar­ket­ing orga­ni­za­tion for over 80 years and will con­tin­ue to work on behalf of the com­mu­ni­ty through con­ven­tion, event and sports sales and vis­i­tor cen­ter ser­vices in 2022.

“From the moment we saw the RFP for this oppor­tu­ni­ty, we knew this would be a per­fect project for Bell­mont Part­ners and L&S’s com­bined tourism pas­sion, expe­ri­ence and skillsets,” says Shel­li Lis­sick, Part­ner at Bell­mont Part­ners. “We’re thrilled to now use that exper­tise to tell the sto­ries of Duluth’s des­ti­na­tions, busi­ness­es and peo­ple to audi­ences in Min­neso­ta and across the country.”

Bell­mont Part­ners has been named PR Daily’s PR Agency of the Year and ranked as Minnesota’s top trav­el and tourism PR agency by O’Dwyer’s. We served as the PR agency of record for Explore Min­neso­ta Tourism from 2016 through 2020, pro­mot­ing the entire state – includ­ing Duluth. L&S has a 45-year his­to­ry in boost­ing busi­ness KPIs for trav­el and tourism enti­ties in Min­neso­ta and South Dako­ta, with cam­paigns earn­ing awards includ­ing Adri­an Awards, Mer­cury Awards, Tel­ly Awards and Min­nies, as well as hon­ors from the Amer­i­can Adver­tis­ing Fed­er­a­tion. Bell­mont Part­ners and L&S have worked togeth­er close­ly since 2018, com­bin­ing our two teams’ deep exper­tise and fresh per­spec­tives in mar­ket­ing, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, strat­e­gy, adver­tis­ing, cre­ative, social media, pub­lic rela­tions and more to exceed expec­ta­tions for clients in an array of indus­tries. Bell­mont Part­ners’ head­quar­ters is also home to L&S’s Min­neapo­lis office – a shared phys­i­cal space that has our two teams work­ing as one for clients. This deep, col­lec­tive exper­tise in tourism mar­ket­ing brings new visions for icon­ic des­ti­na­tions to life through sophis­ti­cat­ed strate­gies and authen­tic sto­ry­telling with nation­al, region­al and local audiences.

Duluth’s tourism busi­ness joins a grow­ing ros­ter of recent wins for Bell­mont Part­ners’ Tourism & Hos­pi­tal­i­ty prac­tice group, includ­ing Radis­son Blu Mall of Amer­i­ca, Camp Birch­wood, FINNEGANS Brew Co. and Taste of the NFL.

Becom­ing part of the Duluth com­mu­ni­ty with a new office

With clients based across the state, we’ve been con­sid­er­ing open­ing an office in a com­mu­ni­ty out­side of the Twin Cities for some time, and our new rela­tion­ship with Duluth is the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to move for­ward. Bell­mont Part­ners is expand­ing and open­ing a sec­ond office this month, locat­ed at 310 E. Supe­ri­or Street in Duluth’s His­toric Arts and The­atre Dis­trict. With fre­quent trips to Duluth in our future, we’re thrilled to have a found a home base in the city.

Through­out our 25-year his­to­ry, we have woven col­lab­o­ra­tion with and invest­ment in com­mu­ni­ty into every­thing we do – and these core val­ues will extend to our pres­ence in Duluth. For starters, the agency has joined the Duluth Area Cham­ber of Com­merce and is look­ing for­ward to being an active mem­ber of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly after attend­ing the Chamber’s impres­sive annu­al meet­ing and pre­sent­ing at Lead­er­ship Duluth’s Arts & Tourism Day. Dur­ing our onboard­ing peri­od, we’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to begin meet­ing with some of Duluth’s attrac­tions, busi­ness own­ers and asso­ci­a­tions – all pas­sion­ate, wel­com­ing lead­ers who care deeply about the area’s tourism. Last­ly, Bell­mont Gives Back, a pro­gram estab­lished in 2017 that allots com­pa­ny time to vol­un­teer in the com­mu­ni­ty and pro­vide pro bono con­sult­ing to non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tions, will also be part of the agency’s pres­ence in – and com­mit­ment to – Duluth.

“Our love for Duluth and com­mit­ment to the com­mu­ni­ty runs deep,” says Megan Ander­son, Account Direc­tor and lead of the Tourism & Hos­pi­tal­i­ty prac­tice group at Bell­mont Part­ners. “We have enjoyed begin­ning to get to know the peo­ple and busi­ness­es of Duluth even bet­ter over the past sev­er­al weeks as we ramp up to 2022 and are excit­ed to be active mem­bers of the local busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. We look for­ward to part­ner­ing with the city’s most beloved attrac­tions, hid­den gems and every­thing in between to share far and wide what makes Duluth a top des­ti­na­tion for travelers.”