{"id":103293,"date":"2019-05-14T15:53:42","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T19:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=103293"},"modified":"2019-05-14T12:00:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T16:00:34","slug":"madison-county-tourism-names-colleen-zimmer-2019-champion-of-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=103293","title":{"rendered":"Madison County Tourism names Colleen Zimmer 2019 Champion of Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Pictured from left are Truman Hartshorn, President of Madison County Tourism; Sullivan Supervisor John M. Becker; Colleen Zimmer and Mayor Mark Pulver. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Madison County Tourism, the county\u2019s official tourism\npromotion agency, recently named Colleen Zimmer as its 2019 Champion of\nTourism. The award was presented to Zimmer, the director of the Oz-Stravaganza\nfestival, during Madison County Tourism\u2019s annual meeting April 18 at the\nHampton Inn & Suites Cazenovia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the past three decades, Colleen has worked to grow\nOz-Stravaganza from a small party and parade to a three-day world-renowned\nevent that draws 30,000 people to Chittenango and Central New York each year,\u201d\nsaid Truman Hartshorn, president\nof Madison County Tourism<\/a>. \u201cWe thank Colleen and her festival team for all\nthey do to bring Oz-Stravaganza\u2014the largest and longest-running Wizard of\nOz-themed festival in the world\u2014to reality each year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oz-Stravaganza is held each June and celebrates\nChittenango-born L. Frank Baum, author of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and\nthe world he created. The festival features one of the region\u2019s largest\nparades, Oz programming, fireworks, amusement rides and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hartshorn also noted that in addition to her festival work,\nZimmer books group tours for the All Things Oz Museum, which now draws more\nthan 17,000 visitors annually on top of the festival traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIncredibly, Colleen does not take a cent for her work,\u201dHartshorn\nsaid. \u201cEverything she has done for the past 30 years has been as a volunteer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zimmer was also presented with certificates of recognition\nfrom Sullivan Supervisor John M. Becker and Chittenango Mayor Mark Pulver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Welcoming people to Chittenango for Oz-Stravaganza is\nan absolute joy, and I am honored to receive so much recognition,\u201d Zimmer said.\n\u201cBut none of it would be possible without our festival team and the entire Oz\ncommittee. They are the heart, courage and brains who make the three days in\nJune the wonderful event that it is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Champion of Tourism Award is given annually to\nthose who have had a significant impact on the tourism industry in Madison\nCounty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tourism is a vital industry in Madison County; according to\ndata from Tourism Economics, tourism spending in Madison County rose 12.4\npercent to $99.9 million in 2017. This spending generated $6.8 million in local\ntaxes and $5.5 million in state taxes, which saved the average household $471\nin taxes and sustained more than 2,200 jobs in the county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Madison County Tourism, visit\u00a0madisontourism.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madison County Tourism, the county\u2019s official tourism promotion agency, recently named Colleen Zimmer as its 2019 Champion of Tourism. The award was presented to Zimmer, the director of the Oz-Stravaganza festival, during Madison County Tourism\u2019s annual meeting April 18 at the Hampton Inn & Suites Cazenovia. \u201cOver the past three decades, Colleen has worked to grow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/103294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}