4-14-2022 11:06am

Morris County Tourism Merges with Economic Development Corporation

Chris Connors Editor

The Morris County Tourism Bureau has merged with the Morris County Economic Development Alliance, the nonprofit arm of the Morris County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC).

“Bringing together Tourism and Economic Development into one-unified structure offers an ideal mechanism to leverage and optimize our existing assets while setting the table for additional strategic growth initiatives,” stated Craig Schlosser, who is vice president of the MCEDC and the alliance president. “The overlap and opportunity for a stronger-unified structure is apparent from a high-level. Both organizations focus on economic development. The Morris County Economic Development Corporation, which is a division of the Morris County Chamber of Commerce, focuses primarily on the business-to-business portion of economic development through supporting business growth, attraction and retention while the Tourism Bureau focuses on the business-to-consumer market.”

The Tourism Bureau is a “Destination Marketing Organization,” one of 13 in New Jersey, that drives thousands of out-of-state visitors to Morris County each year and is considered one of the premier heritage destination marketing organizations in the state.

According to Leslie Bensley, the bureau’s former executive director who recently retired and now serves as a consultant for the organization, the merger between Morris County Tourism and MCEDC will enhance the bureau’s marketing abilities.

“The unified structure allows for a more effective and focused marketing strategy, which can help drive investment from both in-state and out-of-state stakeholders, along with attracting additional visitors to the region,” said Bensley.

Bensley notes how tourism contributes to the quality of life in Morris County, promoting local businesses and helping with employee recruitment and retention. She says the partnership with MCEDC will enable the Tourism Bureau to promote corporate events and strengthen local retail businesses, restaurants, and hotels that were hit particularly hard by the pandemic.

This merger between the Morris County Tourism Bureau and the Morris County Economic Development Alliance (MCEDA) has been in discussion on and off since the mid-1990ss but was recently revived by the Morris County Board of Commissioners and Meghan Hunscher, president of the Morris County Chamber of Commerce who also sits on the board of directors of the Tourism Bureau.

“There is so much overlap between economic development and the business of tourism that enabling these two organizations to work together more closely made perfect sense,” Hunscher said. “Tourism contributes significantly to the county’s economic engine and EDC is charged with driving that engine to new heights. This makes both stronger.”

The merger was made official on March 11, 2022. Since the merger, the MCEDC and the Tourism Bureau have worked on several initiatives and programs set to launch in the second quarter of 2022.