The Central Cascades

The Central Cascades Geotourism Initiative is a partnership between the Oregon and Washington state tourism boards and National Geographic to promote the natural beauty and environment of the Central Cascades region. In order to define what geotourism is and how it relates to the Central Cascades, Substance embarked on a brand exercise to clearly establish the brand promise and to create a central brand platform to define the interactive identity.

Substance did extensive research into the kinds of travelers that would be drawn to geotourism within the region and created detailed brand personas of the types of visitors that we wanted to speak to within the website. Fundamentally Substance set out to answer the question, “What makes the Cascades so special that when you arrive, you know that you are no place else in the world?”

Or, as we put it, “what makes here, Here?”

Building upon this brand identity, Substance developed the initial phase of the website to capture nominations for geotourism destinations and promote the idea of sustainable tourism within the region. Nominations closed at the end of March, 2009, so we’re on to the next phase of the site. This site will eventually serve to promote sustainable travel opportunities throughout the Cascades as well as provide information on additional services to help travelers plan their entire trip.

To date, this partnership has been phenomenally successful. We have captured over 700 nominated sites (2 to 3 times the expected response), leading to further engagement for Substance to develop additional geotourism sites on an international scale.

Images 1 – 3 are from our Central Cascades Brand Presentation; Images 4 – 8 are screenshots of the Central Cascades site during the location nomination process.