Our destinations in the media Family Fun Magazine lists Lake Placid in its Top 10 Northeast Regional Favorites. READ THE ARTICLE

LAKE PLACID — Hundreds of people attended Tastes of Maple in the Conference Center at Lake Placid on Saturday. They enjoyed a wide range of maple creations like maple cheddar fondue, smoked maple wings, maple cake pops, and maple-glazed Canadian bacon from a variety of local businesses: Dancing Bears Cake Placid Centerplate, who donated their proceeds to the Make-A-Wish Foundation Generations Tap & Grill Lake Flour Cakery Lake Placid Spirits Lisa G's The Breakfast Club, Etc. The Cottage The Wild Center Smoke Signals A maple syrup tasting competition took place with syrup provided by: Black Rooster Maple Works South Meadow Farm Sugar Works Cornell Uihlein Sugar Works ​G & G Maple Sugar Works Paul Smith's College Paul Smith's Visitors Interpretive Center ​The Wild Center Attendees voted on their favorite syrup, and Paul Smith's College took First Place in the tasting competition. ​The celebration also included a cash bar and music from local band Le Groove. Attendees at Maple Weekend also enjoyed local maple producers' sugarbush tours, maple tastings all weekend at Whiteface Mountain and lots of family fun activities. Local restaurants provided maple-inspired menus throughout the region. Don't miss this sweet, fun event next year!

CONTACT: Kim Rielly Director of Communications kim@roostadk.com Lake Placid, adirondacks, usa — The Regional Office of Sustainable Tourism (ROOST) applauds Governor Cuomo and the state legislature on a an on-time New York state budget that means great news for communities and tourism in the Adirondacks. Budget highlights that directly affect the 6 million acre park include broadband funding, an increase in I Love New York Matching Funds, a renewed commitment to the Market New York program, and the new Upstate Revitalization Fund, and an increase of $15 million in the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) above last year. The budget includes an increase in funding for the I Love New York Matching Funds program, which provides cooperative allocations for the state’s designated tourism regions. “We extend special thanks and recognition to Senator Little for her support of increased funding for Matching Funds,” said James McKenna, president of ROOST. “ROOST now represents three of the Adirondack region’s eight counties, and this funding increase will really boost the cooperative marketing initiatives that our organization and our partners at the Adirondack Regional Tourism Council can implement, such as gotourny.com startup website directed to motorcycle enthusiasts." Governor Cuomo’s new Upstate Revitalization Fund, in which seven Regional Economic Development Council regions will compete for three $500 million allocations, was also included in the budget. “We’re especially excited about the potential that the Upstate Revitalization Fund offers for our region,” said McKenna. “Many of the North Country region’s communities have been working for months on tourism development plans, and they we are now well-positioned to compete as a region and take advantage of these much-needed resources. Combined with the fifth year of the Regional Economic Development Council’s programming, this gives us the ability to customize the state’s economic development programs to increase the number of jobs and improve the quality of life in the Adirondacks.” Broadband is essential to Adirondack communities as they seek to gain a competitive position in the travel marketplace. “The funding match allocated for broadband projects is extremely important. The rural communities in Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties need to provide what is now considered a basic amenity for visitors,” McKenna said. McKenna cited the big increase in Smart Growth planning grants as having an impact throughout North Country region and the Adirondacks, and he said that increasing the EPF will help protect the important resources of the Adirondacks. “Revitalization of our hamlets is of utmost importance,” McKenna said. “From smart growth planning to invasive species control, these programs are of great importance in the ongoing protection of the product that attracts the traveling public — our pristine mountains and lakes.” “The Governor’s ongoing commitment to tourism and appreciation of its economic significance is a great boon to the North Country,” said McKenna.“From the renewed interest shown with initiatives like the Governor’s Adirondack Challenges to providing funding for both promotion and development, this budget will spur even more momentum toward economic prosperity through tourism in the Adirondacks.” ROOST is a 501(c)6 nonprofit corporation, and the accredited destination marketing organization responsible for promoting Essex, Franklin and Hamilton counties, the villages of Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake, and the towns of Harrietstown and Piercefield in the Adirondacks to the traveling public. They operate offices in Lake Placid, Crown Point, Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake. For more information, visit their corporate website at www.roostadk.com. ###

SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce plans to host a series of workshops to train business owners and front-line staff on the ins and outs of great hospitality. The Chamber has recently applied for and received funding through the Workforce Development Institute to create the curriculum for the first Saranac Lake Community Hospitality Excellence Experience (CHEX) series of workshops for our typical and atypical hospitality staff. Business owners and front-line staff attending the program will bring back valuable knowledge to help train their co-workers and employees. The CHEX Series will be offered in three half-day sessions from 8:30 a.m. to noon April 17, May 8 and May 22 at the Best Western Conference Room in Saranac Lake. While the CHEX series is intended for participants to attend all sessions for a price of $60, participants may attend separate sessions for a fee of $25 per session. Who are typical and atypical hospitality staffs? A visitor's first conversations arriving in the area may very well be with an atypical hospitality employee — a gas station attendant, coffee shop barista, liquor store employee — not the typical hospitality front desk personnel at a hotel. The Chamber hopes to create a warm, welcoming first impression to visitors as we all tell the “Saranac Lake Story,” encourage repeat visitations and great word-of-mouth publicity for the area. The CHEX workshops, offered to front-line workers, business owners, volunteers, and other interested community members, will increase the economic and community benefits of tourism. CHEX will foster regional collaboration and enhance Saranac Lake’s image as an Adirondack destination. To achieve these goals, each interactive half-day session will develop different skills in two key areas: Community Connections–shared knowledge, sources of information, and familiarization with local and regional historic, recreation, wellness, and arts and crafts experiences and events, as well as resources for shopping and personal needs. Quality Hospitality and Service—key components of superior hospitality and communications skills that help improve connections and interactions with visitors, and within work environments. To develop the Saranac Lake CHEX program components, Susan Day Fuller, president of Fuller Communications, met with a focus group of Chamber members and other community leaders. Fuller will facilitate the three interactive training sessions.

Q: How do you accumulate over 35 DAYS worth of website traffic in just 1 day? A: No need for a flux capacitor, you just need good content. (No fooling.) Adirondack Mountain Club shared Lake Placid ADK's blog link. There was a lot of online chatter about the Adirondacks yesterday. Perhaps some of you read one or all of the April Fools 2015 edition blog posts that the ROOST staff wrote and distributed in honor of this annual event. We (I) have written these typical hoax April 1 blog posts in the past - in news release format. This year, we added the annual holiday to our editorial list of topics and published one of the “fake” news releases on all seven of our current destination websites. They all went live at 8:00 a.m. on April 1. Like we do every week for our topical emails, we then distributed the links via the destination social media accounts, and then sent a mass email to our visitor database with links to all seven blogs. This works well to drive site traffic every week. THIS week, though, the content clearly resonated. The subjects varied but had one thing in common: controversy. ENGAGEMENT The great thing about social media is its potential for “viral” sharing and increased engagement with your content. Algorithms change and the percentage of your posts that your friends/fans actually see can be limited. With increased sharing, that potential news feed inclusion increases by some factor to which I’m not privvy or personally capable of calculating. The point is, when people read and share with their friends, and they share with THEIR friends, and so on, this results in (in this case) a lot of online discussion about the Adirondacks during one day. STATS Here’s where the 35 days comes in. Engagement on Facebook, specifically, was significant. For example, the blog “DOT and DEC Announce Joint Decision on Rails/Trail” on lakeplacid.com was distributed via the Lake Placid ADK Facebook page. That post garnered 30,700 impressions, 4,200 clicks, 352 likes/comments/shares. But wait! There’s more. Just ONE of those shares was from the Adirondack Mountain Club. They have 29,211 fans on their page. Their fans shared this link another 212 times. (They also shared the link to the “Visible border to define Adirondack boundary” blog, which garnered another 89 shares from their fans.) Not only did people comment on Facebook and on the blog posts themselves, but they actually clicked the link to the website, and spent significant time on the site READING the posts. That blog on lakeplacid.com had 10,539 views, 22 comments (engagement) and visitors spent an average of 5:24 minutes reading! Altogether, the seven websites welcomed site visitors who spent a cumulative 35+ days reading - all in one day. WHAT’S MY POINT? That’s a lot of engagement with our destinations. And a lot of chatter online ABOUT the Adirondacks. If you missed it, here are just a couple of comments from the blogs themselves: In the "Fooled" category (DOT & DEC Announce Joint Rails/Trails Decision): "Is this a joke??? why would we ever ruin the wildlife with trains??????? If people are too lazy and obese to see the high peaks then maybe they should go on a diet... i climbed all 46 high peaks and would be extremely disappointed if this is first real and if it becomes a reality" Thank god this was only an April Fool's joke! I was ready to hike up from Delaware to protest! You got me BIG time!!! Have a great day! Climbed on board: (DOT & DEC Announce Joint Rails/Trails Decision) "Come on, DEC, How much do we spend on rescues? I think we really need escalators on all the HIgh Peaks. Maybe Internet Cafes on some summits." (Wilmington Notch Toll Highway) "Well done!!! You got me hook line and sinker!!!" (Tree Tracking Grant Awarded to Hamilton County) "Think again. I'm from Waterford NJ where the police gained a little infamy clocking the trees going at 35 MPH. Of course the tickets were all thrown out when it turned out that the trees were actually in a 40 zone, not 25." (Visible Border to Define Adirondack Boundary) "Another great advantage of this plan: where the Park boundaries are water, as on Lake Champlain and Lake George, we will be able to look out on the lake and see a light show caused by the waves." If you didn’t read them yet, here are the links: DOT & DEC Announce Joint Rails/Trails Decision Senate Approves Drone Hunting in Park Region Wilmington Notch to Install Tolls $325,000 Tree Tracking Grant Awarded to Hamilton County Forts Reactivated: NY Tourism to Declare Civil War on Vermont Saranac Lake Attempts Summer Ice Palace Visible Border to Define Adirondack Boundary