(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Travel Industry Partners is sending out its first scholarships to 21 tourism leaders in the state. The group’s executive director Chelsea Lerud says they are collaborating with the Iowa Tourism Office to encourage Iowa’s tourism professionals to attend regional and national industry conferences. “Getting them out to these national conferences to represent the state, to learn what other states are doing for programming, and bring those ideas back to the state, which will, in turn grow the offerings that we can here in Iowa,” she says. Lerud says the “Elevate Iowa” scholarships help with the cost of attending the conferences. “A lot of times the travel to these conferences is more expensive than the actual registration of the conference, so that can be a barrier for attendees,” Lerud says. “…The scholarship will support up to 60 percent of the individual’s cost to attend the conference. ”

Lerud says the scholarship recipients have several different conferences they plan to attend. “Two of our museum partners are attending the American Museum membership conference. So it’s the National Association for museums, and they’re just going to learn information about enhancing their museum membership programs,” she says. “Some are attending an event called the chief executive summit by sports E-T-A. Sports E-T-A is the National Sports Association, so destinations that host a lot of sporting events.” Others will attend the Upper Midwest Convention and Visitors Bureau conference. “That is a regional conference where Iowa falls eight states here in the Midwest. And that conference happens once a year just to learn best practices in kind of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, economic development, tourism, recruitment, space. And really collaboration with other destinations in the Midwest is really important at that conference,” she says.

Lerud says they want to keep getting out the word that Iowa is no longer just a flyover state. “We are a destination, and we want to make sure those visitors that are seeking destinations to go experience know that Iowa is an option for them. You know, in 2023 visitors spent over seven-point-three billion dollars in our state,” she says. The program gave out around half of its 40-thousand dollar allotment.

Here are some of the organizations which got money: Jewel Main Street, Discover Ames, Iowa Travel Industry Partners, Visit Quad Cities, Meet in Marshalltown, Villages of Van Buren, Cedar Rapids Tourism, Visit Quad Cities, Travel Dubuque, Waterloo Main Street, Driftless Area, Visit Fort Dodge, Explore Siouxland, Dubuque County Historical Society, Indian Creek Nature Center.