Americans keep traveling but communities need to be more savvy to draw those visitors in during tight economic times.

Opportunities exist to accommodate multi-generational traveling groups for communities and venues that can customize experiences and for those communities that focus their efforts in their own backyards. Those are some of the messages that were spread Tuesday at the Kentucky Tourism Industry Annual Conference.

About 400 people gathered for the three-day conference which began Monday at the Sloan Convention Center.

Peter Yesawich of Y Partnership based in Orlando, Fla., was perhaps a bit more optimistic than some of the tourism officials gathered at the conference.

Yesawich, who spoke about traveling trends, said he didn’t think that high gasoline prices, which until recently were $4 a gallon or more, were discouraging people from vacations. A survey by his firm showed that the majority of people said they would continue to travel and those who were going to alter their plans were mostly going to shorten the length of their trips and take them closer to home.

But Bobbie Jo Lee, marketing director for the National Corvette Museum, said she feels that gas prices have definitely impacted the museum.

“We have nine major events a year and people used to come to three or four of them and now they may only come to one or two of them,” Lee said of the museum’s frequent event participants who typically drive their Corvettes.

Vicki Fitch, executive director of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she also believes gas prices have had an impact on tourism.

“There is no question our occupancy rates are down,” Fitch said.

One way to combat those slumps is by niche marketing to the only growing segment of tourism travel, multi-generational travel, Yesawich said.

Trips can be customized for those families or any other travelers, he said.

Yesawich also said that the conversational marketing that goes on through blogs is one of the newest fronts that tourism officials need to monitor, since one in five travelers will visit a blog in deciding such things as where to go and what to do on a vacation.

He told participants, however, that they shouldn’t do anything about negative blogs unless they are saying things that are factually incorrect.

One of the things that Marissa Butler at the Bowling Green CVB does is monitor blogs that mention anything about Bowling Green.

“Mostly I just kind of listen and then I can jump in when I have something to add,” she said.

For instance, Butler watches blogs about movie director John Carpenter and has posted information about the tour of Carpenter haunts in his hometown.

Marketing efforts, Yesawich said, should be concentrated in a four-hour traveling radius, essentially a community’s backyard.

Bruce Powell, deputy superintendent at Mammoth Cave National Park, said visitorship is down 6 percent to 7 percent at the cave but he has noticed that more visitors than ever are coming from within the state, giving credence to Yesawich’s backyard marketing suggestion.

Yesawich also told participants that the next biggest tool for marketing will be the “third screen” or Internet enabled cell phones.

Now three in 10 mobile phones are Internet ready but that number will explode in the next few years. He predicts that in three years more people will be using the Internet on their phones to book tickets, make motel reservations and a number of other things.

Again the Bowling Green CVB is making its Web site friendly for mobile phone users, Fitch said.

Another area that Kentucky can capitalize on is agritourism, according to Stephen P. Yates, director of the state’s Division of Agritourism.

Yates said agritourism is a perfect way for farmers to diversify their income if only they would not undervalue the services they have to offer.

While many family farms are becoming much more than that by offering pumpkin patch trips for school children, apple picking and other activities, Yates said they often undervalue what they offer to the public.

Yates also is working to get more farmers to register with the state when they are offering such experiences. At www.kentuckyfarmsarefun.com, farmers can post information about what they do and upload as many as three pictures of their activities, all for free.

Yates said he will even come and take the pictures if necessary.

“Chaney’s Dairy Barn is a great example of what they are doing,” he said.

Yates said 20,000 school children visited Chaney’s last year.

Earlier in the conference, Fitch introduced Bowling Green Mayor Elaine Walker and Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon to participants.

“We don’t have to convince them that tourism is economic development,” Fitch said.

Buchanon told the crowd that tourism as a whole “brings in more clean money than any other individual industry in the county.”

Western Kentucky University President Gary Ransdell, in speaking at the group’s breakfast, said that WKU contributes to that tourism industry with sporting events, concerts, plays, visiting parents and other events.

Ransdell he said he estimates that such activities generate about 15,000 motel stays annually. Later this week, he plans to talk to a hotelier about the possibility of constructing a hotel near campus. He planned to tell the hotelier that such a facility could get as many as 10,000 stays per year.