The landscape for breweries and the beer industry has changed dramatically over the past decades and continues to change on almost a monthly basis. In just the last few years, we have seen a continued increase in breweries with a flattening of the growth curve, leading to a new competitive environment not seen before by many industry players.
Bart Watson, Chief Economist of the Brewers Association, will address this in his closing keynote address, Tourism and Marketing in a Competitive Era, at the 2020 Beer Marketing & Tourism Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Half of breweries in the United States sell a majority of their beer from their own taprooms or brewpubs, which makes tourism a critical factor in which small breweries will succeed and which will fail. Bart will dissect his statistics and discuss brewery visits, industry events, economic impacts, and consumer motivations for visiting breweries, all of which will lead to some advice as to how you can stand out from the crowd in your tap room and events.
But regardless of how good your tourism offering is, you won’t get visitors if you don’t market to them. Unlike in previous years when many breweries could focus on production and rely on word of mouth promotion, marketing is now a fundamental aspect of running a brewery. With this increased competition, attracting new beer consumers rather than drawing them from your peers is a viable path forward and Bart will discuss the demographics of who and who is not purchasing craft beer, as well as what you can do yourself to draw in new visitors.
Don’t miss the opportunity to hear Brewers Association Chief Economist Bart Watson clarify the data and provide insight and inspiration as to how you can thrive in a new competitive era.
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