BERLIN After finishing third in
preliminary voting earlier this winter,
Berlin has now entered the final
round for Budget Travel's "Ameri-
ca's Smallest Cool Town" contest
and is currently in first place.
With final round voting re-open-
ing late last week, Berlin rode the
momentum generated in the prelim-
inary and jumped to the front of the
pack. As of Wednesday, the town is
in the lead with 23 percent of the
total vote. Its closest competitors
are Buckhannon, W.Va., at 19 per-
cent; Mathews, Va., at 15 percent;
and Travelers Rest, S.C. at 10 per-
cent. The remainder of the top 15
falls sharply after Travelers Rest
with the next closest near 6 percent
all the way down to last place at 0.1
percent.
Voting for America's Coolest
Small Town will continue until Tues-
day, Feb. 25. Visitors to Budget Tra-
vel's website can vote once per day
for their favorite town.
When the voting for the 2014
Smallest Cool Town began late in
2013, it didn't generate much of a
stir in Berlin. But word of mouth and
a concentrated effort from a small
number of residents helped the
town leapfrog up the list. At that
point, it began to get attention.
"A lot of people picked up on it as
it ended," said Michael Day, director
of Economic and Community De-
velopment. "The word just got out at
the very end."
Within a few short weeks, Berlin
had climbed into the top 15 and
then the top 10. When first-round
voting closed, it sat at number three
in the country and the only town
from Maryland near the top.
Now that voting has re-opened
with Berlin in front, Lisa Challenger,
director of Tourism for Worcester,
hopes to get the entire state behind
Berlin.
"I think because there are no
other towns in Maryland that we're
competing with or even nearby ...
we are going to reach out to the
Maryland State Tourism office to try
to make this a Maryland thing and
get them using all of their social
channels to help with the voting,"
she said. "I'm going to reach out to
all of my other tourism counterparts
across the state."
Challenger is optimistic about
wrangling support, especially local-
ly, with the surrounding counties
and other municipalities in Worces-
ter. Ocean City has used its social
media to spread the word, for in-
stance.
"This is something that is Amer-
ica's top 10, not just Maryland's. It's
going to be a really huge marketing
tool for us, and if people want to
come and explore these small towns
I think it's important to know that Be-
rlin only has very limited lodging
places. And so the most logical place
people would stay is Ocean City, so I
think it can help everybody, not just
Berlin," she said.
Day agreed that Ocean City es-
pecially should be in Berlin's corner
as Berlin being voted the country's
coolest small town would help the
entire area "publicity-wise."
Though there's still more than a
month of voting left, Day is confident
that Berlin has a shot at keeping its
lead and taking first place.
"I'm hoping that with a push, and
if we can get the state tourism board
onboard, hopefully we can win it,"
he said.
The county plans to follow the
Budget Travel contest closely as
this is by far the best showing a
Worcester town has had yet. The
fight will go to the social media bat-
tleground, with Challenger confirm-
ing that Mark Huey, the county's
social media coordinator, will be
dedicating a lot of effort to promot-
ing through a number of different
mediums.
"We do want to reach out and get
others helping us because we un-
derstand that we're a small popula-
tion and we can't do it all by our-
selves," Challenger said.
To vote, head over to www.bud-
gettravel.com.
With Month To Go, Berlin Leads `Cool Town' Contest
Page 10
January 24, 2014
The Dispatch/Maryland Coast Dispatch
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