Aug 3, 2026
2026 NYS Tourism Excellence Awards Honoree: Destination Development & Community Engagement
Yōkoso Cooperstown: Building Community-Wide Readiness for International Visitors
Join us on Thursday morning in Corning at the 2026 NYS Tourism Excellence Summit as Ryan Geraghty, Marketing & Communications Director at This is Cooperstown, shares how a village of just 1,800 people prepared for a global tourism moment. When Ichiro Suzuki was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame with a record 99% of the vote, This Is Cooperstown faced a question most small-market DMOs never have to answer: was the community ready to welcome an international wave of visitors? Rather than simply react, they built lasting infrastructure, including a Japanese-language landing page, AI chatbot translation, a Hall of Fame visitor map, storefront window clings with QR codes, and staff phrase sheets grounded in real cultural etiquette. Discover how a small DMO partnered with a language consultant, the Hall of Fame, and dozens of Main Street businesses to turn one historic induction into long-term international visitor readiness—and the practical lessons any destination, regardless of size or budget, can apply.
Why You Should Attend This Session:
- See how a single high-profile moment (an Induction Weekend) can be used to build lasting, reusable visitor infrastructure rather than a one-off push.
- Learn how to engage a language consultant and institutional partner (in this case, the National Baseball Hall of Fame) to get translation and cultural nuance right, not just technically correct.
- Get a real-world playbook for mobilizing Main Street businesses around a shared hospitality initiative and why that outreach can rebuild DMO-business relationships beyond the event itself.
Key Takeaways:
- How to fold cultural etiquette and language accuracy into staff training without overwhelming small business owners.
- Why community-wide hospitality infrastructure—not marketing campaigns—is what actually differentiates destination readiness at scale.
About Ryan:
Ryan Geraghty is the Director of Marketing & Communications at This Is Cooperstown, where she leads brand strategy and integrated marketing across web, social, email, and paid media for one of the most recognized destinations in youth baseball and sports tourism, reaching a 3M+ audience and driving visitation from national and international markets. In collaboration with the Cooperstown team, 'Yōkoso to Cooperstown' was born: a community-wide readiness initiative built around Ichiro Suzuki's Hall of Fame induction, blending institutional partnership, language access, and Main Street engagement into lasting destination infrastructure.
Ryan holds a Professional in Destination Management (PDM) certification from Destinations International and previously served as Managing Director at Paperkite, a Cooperstown-based creative agency. "BP" (Before Paperkite), she managed a multi-state live-events portfolio and radio station operations for the Townsquare Media Group along the East Coast. Ryan is known for managing cohesive brand voices, translating audience insights into measurable impact, and — when given the chance — writing RFPs for fun and website/blog/social copy with a little too much personality.
About This is Cooperstown:
This is Cooperstown is the officially designated Tourism Promotion Agency and Destination Marketing Organization for Otsego and Schoharie Counties, New York. Best known as home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum, Cooperstown anchors a broader region rich in youth sports, outdoor recreation, arts and culture, and craft beverage. This Is Cooperstown works year-round to promote both counties as visitor destinations while investing in the community infrastructure - from accessibility partnerships to international-visitor readiness - to makes tourism sustainable and welcoming for residents and guests alike.