LISBON – With the history of a pottery industry in the south part, the history of the Quakers and women’s rights in the north and a lot of beautiful parks in between, Columbiana County has a number of interesting places to visit that many outside of this area have never heard about.

Up until now, Columbiana County did not have a general tourism website or a visitor’s bureau, but Eileen Dray-Bardon of the Columbiana County Parks Board and Economic Development Director Tad Herold are working to remedy both problems.

“I’ve lived in this county all my life,” Dray-Bardon said. “We’ve got some great things here. We just don’t market them.”

During Wednesday’s County Commissioner’s meeting, the two asked for the appointment of five people to the initial board of the new Columbiana County Visitor’s Bureau, a non-profit organization they filed the paperwork for just earlier in the week. Besides Dray-Bardon and Herold, the initial board will be comprised of Mario Hernandez, Virginia Maria Grilli and Erich Offenburg. The board is made up from people from across the county who are involved with different types of tourism.

Now that the initial board is seated, Dray-Bardon said there could be additional people appointed if someone has an interest in serving.

The idea is not to draw away from the efforts of the current visitor’s groups, but to enhance their efforts. Dray-Bardon said knowing that the individual visitor’s bureaus from the various towns around the county have already issued a bed tax, this county project is one that will be developed with minimum cost.

After tossing around the ideas for what they could do, Herold and Dray-Bardon had asked a group of Kent State University

marketing students to look at what the county could do to generate tourism. Dray-Bardon said the students truly did not believe them that there was not a main website for events and places to visit in the county. It was decided that was the best place to start.

The project will work to create a single site where someone searching for Columbiana County on the internet could look and find links to things to do across the county. Coming a long way for one museum may not seem worth it to someone, but if they found there were five things they wanted to do here, they may find themselves coming for a weekend.

With a Zoom meeting planned for next week and already interest shown from people Herold and Dray-Bardon have reached out to speak with about the project, she said they would like to get the website up by the end of the year.