MOUNT VERNON, VA – Mount Vernon has developed new marketing and interpretative materials designed to make the Father of Our Country and his Virginia estate more interesting and accessible to guests from all corners of the globe. Available in 11 languages, the maps not only serve as useful wayfinding tools, but also provide insights and information to make key moments and topics of early American history more appealing to global guests. To accompany the printed guides, Mount Vernon also introduced audio tours in French, Spanish, and Mandarin, making them available to guests through a rental audio device for seven dollars.
Recognizing that many more global travelers are accessing destination information and making travel decisions on the online, Mount Vernon also launched new visitor-focused web pages that present key visitor-focused information in French, Spanish, and Mandarin. Each web page also features a video, in which a native speaker of the target language offers a glimpse of the Mansion, gardens, grounds, and distillery. Mount Vernon partnered with Brand USA, the official marketing organization for the United States, to create the videos, which are also being distributed as part of the United States’ international marketing efforts.
The investment in these new assets comes in response to a growing need—and a noticeable shift—in local tourism patterns. In 2015, Washington, D.C. welcomed 2 million international visitors—a 7.8 percent increase over 2014. The growth trajectory is projected to continue; analysts anticipate that the city will host 3 million overseas visitors by 2020. While visitation from many nations is on the rise, China demonstrated the strongest growth, eclipsing the United Kingdom as the top country of origin in 2014. Visitation to Washington, D.C. by Chinese travelers reached 300,000 in 2015 and is expected to top 500,000 by 2020.
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