Brainerd Lakes Chamber introduces tourism, business websites

The Brainerd Lakes Chamber is pleased to introduce its redesigned tourism website, explorebrainerdlakes.com, and its newly created chamber website, chamberbrainerdlakes.com.

These websites, with seamless transition between the visitor pages and the chamber pages, were created in collaboration with members, Faster Solutions Inc., and ChamberMaster.

The websites offer easier navigation, more intuitive searching, drop-down menus, a great feel of the Brainerd lakes area through panoramic photography, and custom programming to meet the needs of visitors to the websites, as a sampling of the many changes.

The websites also feature the chamber's use of social media with highlights of the tourism and chamber Facebook pages and blogs.

"As a premier vacation and business destination, the chamber continues to invest in a strong online presence that will showcase our community. In doing so we felt it was important to split the tourism information from the chamber information," said Steve Mau, chamber board chair and Brainerd General Rental owner. "As a result, we believe visitors to the websites will find the information they want more quickly and in a more helpful format. And we think they will enjoy the clean, fresh look of the websites and the focus on great photography."

Events calendars are one example of how information is being packaged to help create a better experience on the website. Visitors to the websites will realize three distinct calendars - a tourism-focused calendar, a community calendar and a chamber calendar.

The tourism-focused calendar, found in the primary navigation under Events at explorebrainerdlakes.com, has information about Festivals & Celebrations; Arts, Culture & Entertainment; Racing; Recreation; Culinary activities; and Premier Annual Events.

The community calendar also can be found at explorebrainerdlakes.com under the About Brainerd Lakes tab. This calendar offers information on more community-focused activities, such as educational classes, health and wellness events, fundraising activities and community services.

The chamber calendar, found at chamberbrainerdlakes.com, offers information only about upcoming chamber events, such as Business After Hours, Lakes Vybe Luncheons, CHOW Time lunches, etc.