What is the First Impressions Program?
First Impressions is a "secret shopper" program pairing two similar communities across North Carolina.
Capturing the unique perspectives of first-time visitors, the First Impressions Program delivers important information to participating communities on what they're doing well and constructive advice on where they can improve.
PURPOSE
Gathers insight to assist community planning and goal setting efforts. It will help your community:
- Assess your current development initiatives and target new ones
- Prioritize community projects and services
- Enhance your community image to visitors
PROCESS
- Tourism Extension (TE) identifies two interested communities with similar characteristics.
- TE trains local community visitation teams (CVT) before visiting the sister community.
- CVTs visit the community and record impressions.
- TE presents these impressions to each community.
- TE can set up a follow-up meeting with communities to meet.
COMMUNITY ROLE
- Identify areas of interest.
- Recruit community visitation teams that can attend training and debrief (meals help) and are willing to visit the paired community.
- Share results!
