Photograph by Shane Van Boxtel/Image Studios
Former Miss Wisconsin Courtney Hansen is determined to elevate her hometown of Manitowoc on the national stage. As the director of tourism for Visit Manitowoc, Hansen leads the overall marketing and sales efforts for the destination marketing organization. Insight sat down with Hansen to talk about the role tourism plays in attracting and retaining Manitowoc’s next generation of community members.
Insight: You’re not the only former Miss Wisconsin to work in tourism following her pageant career. Why do you think there’s so much crossover?
Hansen: Yes, it’s a thing. I think we just work so hard on so many of the skills that are transferable and we’re all ambassadors of our own community, so it’s a natural fit. I have friends and former contestants who are in roles at different destination marketing organizations across the state. After high school, I went to UW-Madison and got a communications degree. One month after I graduated college, I ended up winning Miss Wisconsin so that was my first job out of college, traveling the state for an entire year as Miss Wisconsin 2016. I did Miss America, but I also got to go to events and festivals and be a part of so many different communities, working with their municipalities and tourism entities. That’s really where I fell in love with the tourism industry and wanted to figure out a way to somehow land in that industry and put my communications and marketing skills to work there. I wanted to play a role in helping attract and retain young families and young people to our communities, and I’m really glad to say that I think I’ve been able to do that.
How have you been able to advance efforts to attract and retain young community members?
One way is that I’ve been involved in Progress Lakeshore’s marketing committee for a number of years. I served on Manitowoc’s city council from 2019 to 2021. That was a really big piece of it. They’re working on so many different events like the Lakeshore Balloon Glow, which the chamber and city partner on. Through tourism, we’re highlighting how great of a place Manitowoc is to visit, but we’re also hoping that we entice some people to come and live in this really beautiful lakeshore community where you can raise a family; it’s safe and offers this perfect mix of recreation, lakefront, with great dining and attractions. Our lakefront and riverfront are so special — not many places can claim to have such a beautiful asset the way we do. Our downtown area is just going to continue to grow with a downtown master plan that the city council and city staff took seriously. We’ve really beautified our downtown, and I think those amenities are really attractive to young families.
Manitowoc’s River Point District is a great example of that beautification you mentioned.
Not many municipalities can buy a 20-acre piece of land adjacent to their downtown and develop it, but that’s exactly what we’re doing with the River Point District. This land was vacant for years. The first project there was PetSkull Brewing Company — they renovated their building and now it’s gorgeous. An 87-unit apartment complex has gone up, and right now they’re finishing up some projects like the kayak launches, which should be ready to go for 2024. There’s just so much more to come with downtown enhancements.
The city of Manitowoc brought tourism in-house as of Jan. 1, 2022, creating its department of tourism after ending an agreement with the Manitowoc Area Visitor & Convention Bureau. Why was this advantageous?
It’s been a really exciting two-year journey. We were able to build Visit Manitowoc from the ground up and revamp our tourism image. We knew we wanted to shift from what had been done before and be really modern and progressive with our approach. We immediately launched social channels and utilized them in a way that our community hadn’t before. Our new visual identity is more modern and really captures the shift that the city has undergone in the last few years. The community I moved back home to in 2018 is very different from the one we have today because the mix of public and private partnerships have just skyrocketed and shifted the community as a whole. Our new visual identity really reflects that. We launched a whole new website that’s really visual, photo-focused, fun and energetic. It’s just an entirely different mindset. It’s been great to work in cohesion with so many of the other city departments. It hasn’t even been two years and we have reached a lot of exciting milestones and continue to try new things.
As you celebrate your two-year anniversary with Visit Manitowoc this month, how do you envision things moving forward?
Our department has really shifted the narrative of what tourism is — the tourism industry is changing, and our destination is changing. And I think in some ways, it’s been a wake-up call to some residents who might not have realized just how special our community is and how attractive it is as a destination. I’m really glad that we have such strong partnerships with Progress Lakeshore, community development, and the Chamber of Manitowoc County. We’re all having really cohesive conversations about the light that we shine on our communities in terms of economic development, tourism and attracting the future workforce. We can do all of that together and make sure that we’re all on the same page because, at the end of the day, we all have the same goals of attracting visitors and [future residents] here. Some of the conversations we’re having about housing and child care correlate with that. As a whole, we have made a lot of progress and are headed in the right direction.
