Leelanau County business owners and others interested in promoting tourism in the county have been invited to a discussion session this Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at Black Star Farms on Revold Road off M-22 in Bingham Township.

An organizer of the Leelanau Tourism Initiative, Rick Coates of the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association, said that he will discuss the findings of several “community listening sessions” held around the Leelanau Peninsula in recent months and give an update on the progress of the initiative.

Preliminary results indicated that the “Leelanau Peninsula wants its own destination identity,” according to Coates.

“While partnering with Traverse City is important I think the message was pretty loud and clear that the businesses and communities do not want to be a bedroom community to Traverse City,” Coates said. “There was a consistent message that Leelanau Peninsula and the many assets are the attractions that are driving people north and that Traverse City with its accommodations-based tourism industry needs the Leelanau Peninsula to market to attract visitors …”

Coates said participants in early discussions thought the idea of forming a Leelanau-wide Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) should be explored. Coates said he looked into the issue and discovered that starting a Leelanau CVB might not be an efficient way to market the county.

“First, there is one CVB operating on the peninsula already in the Glen Arbor area (Sleeping Bear),” Coates said. “Second, the Traverse City CVB has been spending thousands to promote the Leelanau Peninsula and would have to stop if a competitive CVB were to be created. Finally, the Leelanau Peninsula lacks the number of lodging rooms to successfully generate sufficient funds to operate a CVB,” Coates said.

Don Coe, a managing partner of Black Star Farms, was recently appointed to the Traverse City CVB’s board. He and CVB president Brad Van Dommelen will make a presentation at the Sunday meeting at Black Star Farms.

“A CVB is all about putting heads on beds,” Coe said. “The Leelanau Tourism Initiative, on the other hand, is a much broader effort that involves businesses other than lodging. So, I see working with the Traverse City CVB as something that is parallel and related to the Leelanau Tourism Initiative, but really a much more limited effort involving only lodging.”

CVB’s are generally funded by imposing a 2-percent “room tax” on lodging accommodations. However, a “paucity of rooms in Leelanau County may not generate enough revenue to make a Leelanau CVB more effective than the Traverse City CVB for Leelanau County,” Coe said.

Coates said he wanted to ensure that those who have been participating in Leelanau Tourism Initiative discussions will not be confused by his and Coe’s suggestions that the Leelanau Peninsula might align itself more closely with the Traverse City CVB rather than establishing a Leelanau CVB.

“CVB’s are very limited in scope, and what the Leelanau Tourism Initiative is proposing is much broader,” Coates said. “The Leelanau Peninsula has all of the elements that a visitor to this part of the state is looking for. What we’d like to do is, for the first time, go forward as a united group and more effectively market Leelanau’s assets.”