The Chamber and Experience Jackson: How Are They Different?

Have you ever stopped by the Jackson Chamber of Commerce, or maybe Experience Jackson? If you have, you ended up in the same office. What comes as a surprise to most, however, is that the Chamber and Experience Jackson are two completely separate entities. This can be confusing, given that some of the team members overlap and each organization collaborates on some of the same projects. However, even with their similarities and overlap, the Chamber and Experience Jackson offer two entirely different purposes to Jackson.

Rachel Buchanan, Marketing & Development Director of Experience Jackson, described the two the following way: The Chamber is here to equip and grow your business and grow your professional connections. Experience Jackson is meant to attract people to those businesses.

The Chamber puts on events meant for networking and growing your business. It also provides business resources, advertising and sponsorship opportunities, legislatives support, and leadership development to its members. The Chamber is member-based, whereas Experience Jackson focuses more on the promotion of all local attractions.

Experience Jackson draws people to the community by promoting what Jackson County has to offer. They do so by sponsoring events or highlighting local restaurants and attractions to those that may not be familiar with the area.

Experience Jackson enjoys taking a hands-on approach when sponsoring and promoting local events, rather than just being a recognizable brand. Playing a role in the growth of Jackson is a large part of their mission, and they love seeing just how many visitors come to explore events like Bright Walls, Museum Day, Gus Macker Tournament, downtown events, and many more. The organization develops deep relationships with tourism locations and offers support where needed, to make sure new faces and returning visitors have plenty of reasons to return.

Outside of event promotion, Experience Jackson also works closely with the local hotels and can set visitors up with hotel blocks, private meeting spaces, or recommend beautiful local venues to host your next event. Experience Jackson also offers golf packages to help bring visitors from all across the Midwest to Jackson’s award-winning courses. Golf is just one thing Experience Jackson focuses on throughout the year, they also push campaigns for fishing, hiking, festivals, food and beverage, and more. Maybe you’re simply wondering how you can fill your weekend plans? Experience Jackson sends out monthly newsletters and weekly updates about local events and happenings. Sign up here.

Experience Jackson specializes in staying involved with the community by investing in the Chamber. Since the Chamber is naturally recognized as a huge professional asset to the community, Experience Jackson takes advantage of its partnership by taking the opportunity to network with other members at Chamber events. By doing so, this opens the door to new partnerships and chances to continue to help bring people to those local businesses.

A must-visit destination is made by having healthy businesses. Therefore, Experience Jackson plays a role in helping those businesses thrive and keep the community vibrant by continuing to highlight them on their social media pages, blog, in publications, and their website. Say you have a friend from out of the area staying for the weekend and you want to plan a visit full of local eats, one-of-a-kind entertainment, and unique nightlife, look no further than ExperienceJackson.com.

There are plenty of ways that Experience Jackson makes the most of their Chamber membership. Experience Jackson loves being a part of is the MLK Diversity Celebration. Not only did Experience Jackson help sponsor, but the team also helped promote professionally and did some assisting behind the scenes. Experience Jackson is also excited to be the presenting sponsor of Disney’s Approach to Employee Engagement, put on by the Chamber. If you kept tabs on Community Awards Week, you may have noticed that the Omotenashi Award was also sponsored by Experience Jackson.

Experience Jackson has a Community Champion-Level Membership, which means that they proudly sponsor a few Chamber memberships as well and bring that opportunity to a business that may be just getting started or needs some financial assistance to get their foot in the door and their name out into the community.

The Chamber is proud to have an organization dedicated to the growth of Jackson’s tourism, and to have it “in-house” at the Chamber makes the team feel especially lucky. To learn more about what Experience Jackson does for the community, click here.