Population: 1,700
Situation: Small town looking to draw tourism away from California’s coasts.
Action: Took a picture of / Faked a mythical creature sighting.
Result: Willow Creek celebrates Big Foot and together the tourism businesses make money.
Willow Creek is the Bigfoot Capital of the World because of the many sightings of Bigfoot and the communities drive to perpetuate the legend and bolster their creative city development to prosper. The History channel has done specials on Bigfoot, newspapers have reported on Bigfoot since the 1960’s, hell, there are over 9,000 books on Bigfoot on the Amazon marketplace.
Willow Creek, California is nestled in the forests of Humboldt, California. The perfect setting for a Bigfoot sighting. Back in 1958, a man made giant feet castes out of concrete and started the myth of Bigfoot leaving footprints around town. In 1967, the infamous footage of Bigfoot looking over his shoulder and giving us the Blue Steel look was taken just outside of Willow Creek. Both, giving flames to the Bigfoot Craze.
Willow Creek greatly benefits from this reclusive monster or ongoing hoax. Whatever it is, it didn’t have to spend a bunch of money to start a creative city theme. The cost of a bag of concrete and some buddies to go in on the myth with you. Monaco for example turns it’s streets into a formula one race track each year to bring in high end tourism revenue. The streets were already there (Though they probably are repaved for the races).
The rise in Bigfoot sightings made a noticeable impact on the town starting as early as 1960. Wyatt’s Motel was renamed Bigfoot’s Motel. Bigfoot Dazes was started. The 1967 film of Bigfoot was even cleverly premiered at Al Hodgson’s General Store which would draw in Bigfoot hunters for coming years as a rest stop for Bigfoot hunters to share stories. The town continues to build upon it’s Bigfoot reputation to this day.
In 2000, a Bigfoot museum was started in town. Today everything is branded with Bigfoot. The Bigfoot Restaurant, Bigfoot Equipment, Bigfoot Rafting, ect. The Bigfoot theme has been fully exploited. This is a commitment from the town to bolster their creative city development.
The town also features many Bigfoot statues all over town. Bigfoot is a symbol of this place adding to the ongoing creative city intrigue that keeps tourists coming back.
Willow Creek has started a little PR war with Remer, Minnesota “The Home of Bigfoot” which is driving publicity back to their town and creating a PR storm for them both to prosper from not unlike Eminem and MGK.
What Canmore has done extremely well is living behind their brand of outdoor sports. Living through that lens has allowed Canmore to Boom. Outdoor mountain sports means a lot. It means healthy, it means clean, it means beautiful. Healthy was a big one.
Canmore has trails that criss cross the city for biking, skiing, and walking all in natural scenery. This has been enough to attract more doctors to their city per capita than other places in Alberta. Developing behind this theme has helped them grow significantly.
There are very few statistics on Willow Creek and their tourism. Overall, they seem to do well capitalizing on the Bigfoot fame. For the last 60 years they have used the theme to draw in visitors. Could your town do something like this? Perhaps your local human society is engineering super dogs or your local sewer system contains super snake?
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King Ludwig I started Oktoberfest in 1801 and for the last 200+ years it has helped sustain Munich.
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