"Sled the Burn" Campaign Touts New Snowmobile Experience & Trails

In the wake of a wildfire season that impacted tourist-dependent areas in Western Montana, Glacier Country Tourism and Southwest Montana Tourism are partnering in a snowmobile campaign to aide the communities of Ovando, Seeley Lake and Lincoln. "Sled the Burn" aims to attract snowmobilers to the thousands of acres of forested land burned by wildfires now wide open for winter play.

"We're making lemonade out of lemons here," said Glacier Country Tourism Executive Director Racene Friede. "Much of the forested land that was burned in the wildfires this past summer in the Seeley, Lincoln and Ovando areas are now prime snowmobiling terrain. Portions of the burned area were once too densely forested to safely navigate on a sled, but now are ideal," she said. Two snowmobiling trail systems in Lincoln and Seeley now connect, which creates over 500 miles of groomed trails and adds thousands of acres of new backcountry snowmobile terrain.

"We're a popular warm season travel destination but due to fire evacuations, air quality conditions and water recreation closures our communities lost a significant amount of peak season revenue which businesses rely on for the year," said Seeley Lake Driftriders Snowmobile Club President Moose Jergesen. "We're thrilled about this partnership and campaign, and hope our businesses are able to recoup some of the fire season losses."

Glacier Country Tourism and Southwest Montana pooled the money from three grants from the Montana Office of Tourism and Business Development through their Emergency Community Marketing Grant Program leveraging both of their existing agencies and related marketing resources to immediate execute a plan to create the "Sled the Burn" snowmobile campaign. The joint venture allowed for an effective and efficient marketing campaign that benefits all three communities.

The target audience is nonresident visitors to those communities, specifically targeting markets within drivable distance to Montana as well as Canada, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington and Oregon. Included in the campaign materials is a video clip using some of Glacier Country Tourism's footage acquired through its partnership with Warren Miller Entertainments last two films, Here, There and Everywhere and Line of Descent – both filmed in Seeley Lake in the past two years. All online inquiries are directed to a landing page with travel and snowmobiling information for all three communities.

Sled the Burn website: http://sledtheburn.com/

Sled the Burn YouTube video: https://youtube/M8nZaAl_uGA