The Pocono Mountains region covers 2,400 square miles and is about the size of Delaware. There are six ski areas, 150 lakes and nine state parks in the four-county area.
It can be overwhelming for visitors or even locals to navigate all that the Poconos has to offer.
The Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau (PMVB) announced an ambassador program that will launch this summer to help those who greet guests be “in the PocoKNOW.”
Marlyn Kissner is vice president of membership and community relations at PMVB.
“Our job is to make sure people know where things are on our website, where to find things on social media, places to eat, places to do activities, places to stay overnight,” she said.
The ambassador program will consist of a free online course that can be taken at any time. It will be about a half hour long, Kissner said.
“This is a program that is really geared to help all of the folks that are in the hospitality industry, but also community members, students, really anybody that wants to know more about the Poconos,” she said.
Brooke Shallop, 19, looks forward to taking the course ahead of graduating with a Hospitality Management degree from East Stroudsburg University.
“I love helping people,” she said. “Helping people have fun, you know, so I want to bring the Poconos to everyone.”
PMVB Highlights
PMVB, a nonprofit, is “the official destination marketing organization for the four counties of Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne.”
PMVB’s marketing budget neared $6.5 million last year, mainly targeting the New York and Philadelphia markets.
“60 percent of folks are coming from New York,” President and CEO Chris Barrett said as he shared some highlights from the last year at the Poconos Tourism Summit in May.
The agency also advertises in the Harrisburg area, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and as far as the Hartford, CT and Washington, D.C. markets.
Barrett is proud of the recent growth at Great Wolf Lodge, which includes 30 new 3-bedroom villas, 202 suites and a 40,000-square-foot expansion to the waterpark. The Swiftwater Hotel opened this month, described as “ultra-modern” and “sophisticated” on its website.
Visitor spending reached $4.3 billion in 2023, with more than 30 million guests, according to data from the Northeast Pennsylvania Alliance. The 2024 Economic Scorecard created by East Stroudsburg University states that tourism accounts for 38 percent of jobs in the Poconos.
PMVB invested in upgrades to technology for Pocono Television Network and installed ten new live webcams to bring the total of livestreams to 35. Barrett said they are looking at implementing next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) on their website.
"Our industry is usually the place where you see early adoption of that type of technology," he said. "We want to be just a little bit ahead of the curve with AI."
The PMVB Community Impact Grant program, established in 2022, also expanded recently. Local governments and redevelopment agencies can apply for up to $20,000 in matching funds for a beautification project within the four-county region.
“This year we had two rounds because it was so popular, so we’re going to continue to do that,” Kissner said. “We’re up to 600,000 [dollars] just in this one year.”
