The Center is helping stakeholders in Maine’s Moosehead Lake region respond to a changing tourism landscape with a new focus on sustainability. 

In June, the Center secured a grant from the Maine Community Foundation to assist Destination Moosehead Lake, the region’s chamber of commerce, in developing a new sustainability-focused strategic plan. Our shared goal is to strengthen local destination management and marketing capacity in one of the Northeast’s premiere outdoor recreation destinations.  

Maine’s Moosehead Lake region is an iconic Northern Forest destination – home to the largest mountain lake in the eastern United States, vast undeveloped forests, hiking, biking, ATVing, and world-class trout and salmon fisheries. The Center has been working with the Maine Office of Tourism (MOT) to help stabilize and rebuild Destination Moosehead Lake after a challenging organizational transition. This work is an outgrowth of the state’s first Community Destination Academy, which the Center and MOT pioneered in Greenville in 2018. 

“The support from the Northern Forest Center and Maine Office of Tourism has been the bedrock of our organization’s rebuilding process,” said Jenny Ward, chair of the Destination Moosehead Lake board of directors.  “The partnership between the Center and MOT enabled us to access strategic guidance, program support, funding, and staffing capacity to revitalize our board of directors, engage our community, stabilize our income, and strengthen our programs.” 

Like many high-amenity rural communities, the Moosehead region was experiencing growth in its visitation economy even before the outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic accelerated that trend and now local businesses and communities are navigating a new landscape of increasing economic opportunity combined with limited workforce, housing, and other infrastructure.  

“Destination Moosehead Lake has reemerged as a robust and vital contributor to development of a sustainable tourism and recreation economy in the Moosehead region,” said Center Senior Program Director Mike Wilson, referring to the outcome of the technical and financial assistance that the Center and MOT provided to the organization. 

The Maine Community Foundation grant secured by the Center will enable Destination Moosehead Lake to respond to changing travel and recreation trends with a new five-year strategic plan grounded by sustainable tourism principles and robust community and business engagement.  

“Communities across the Northern Forest are starting to incorporate the idea of destination management, or stewardship, into their tourism and recreation strategies,” said Wilson. “We’re working to advance this is trend and we’re excited to work with Destination Moosehead Lake and other area partners to make the Moosehead area a truly sustainable travel destination.”