Put Yourself In A Tourist's Shoes: A letter to the City of Muskegon

To the city of Muskegon:
I was searching online for area restaurants to try out one I haven't been to yet. I did not just want to google it because there are no reviews and it does not separate them by category. That is why I was glad to find you offered a link to a directory that states, "For a complete listing of all restaurants that are registered in the City of Muskegon, please visit the Food and Dining section of MuskegonCity.com." When I got to the site I was almost instantly frustrated because it looked nothing like a directory at all. It looked like a service where I needed to create yet another membership for something, I am guessing so that they could sell me something. When I scrolled down to the bottom of the page I saw all of these different categories that had no entries and only three categories with one entry. Basically you the City of Muskegon are saying on the City of Muskegon website that there are only three restaurants in the area, one of which happens to be a bakery.
This is not acceptable if we are to attract visitors who REALLY do not know which restaurants to visit. In fact, my wife works at the subway sandwich shop on Lakeshore Dr. near the Lake Express Ferry. She has story after story of annoyed and even furious passengers from the ferry who are frustrated because the immediate area is not developed and there seems to be little attempt to direct people to hotels, attractions and restaurants in the areas that are more developed than the Lakeside area. I work at Bob Evans on Apple Ave. During the summer season especially I have to help countless tourists that have no idea where anything is, including budding Downtown Muskegon. The City of Muskegon needs to work more collaboratively with the hotels, restaurants, the Lake Express, and I can't forget the theaters and other attractions. They need to be published in one well thought out catalog that promotes the entire area's best attractions, not just Muskegon because the whole county needs to work together in order to attract visitors. The catalog should be updated annually and have customer reviews where only restaurants with a certain level of customer satisfaction are included. Perhaps that will in inadvertently create a standard for area businesses to meet. I would suggest working with the Chamber of Commerce on it. There also needs to be creates a parallel website so the two reinforce each other and all of the area municipalities direct people to.
In order to be in the catalog businesses need to distribute the catalog at their locations. Perhaps call it "The Best of Muskegon" and really make sure it is the "best" of Muskegon". Our visitor will appreciate this and come back again and again because they know where to go (include several detailed maps), they will know what to expect at a place before they get there (the best of Muskegon), and when they decide to come again they will feel more comfortable and familiar with our area. This is much better than a website that flat out lies people about what we have to offer. In the eyes of visitors this looks very bad because a city website is the first place they depend on to champion what their area has to offer. Yes, we have failed at this, but we can make the change now in order to be "Muskegon Together Rising".
Ben Spencer Bob Evans - sales representative/customer service professional.
Baker College Student - Marketing Major