Terry Mattson: New Duluth guide highlights vibrant year

Each year, Visit Duluth works for many months to create a fresh guide that is more enticing, relevant and resourceful for our visitors. The new Guide to Duluth is energized with a contemporary, urban-inspired design that captures our expectations for a very vibrant 2010.

One of the biggest reasons our expectations are so high is the unprecedented number of world-class events that will take place in Duluth this year. There hasn’t been a year like this in recent memory, so every visitor who picks up a copy of the 2010 Guide to Duluth will immediately know that Duluth is the “can’t miss” destination of 2010.

The roster of big-time events actually kicks off this weekend with the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon. Summer heats up with Grandma’s Marathon, the Fourth of July, the Duluth Airshow, Bayfront Blues Festival and the NorthShore Inline Marathon. The year rounds out with the AMSOIL Duluth National Snocross in November.

Sprinkled in this mix is a brand-new event, Sound Unseen.

This popular Minneapolis film festival is moving to Duluth for the first time in 2010, and is expected to attract a new group of visitors to Duluth this summer. Check your listing beginning June 2.

We expect summer visitors will reach an all-time high with Tall Ships Duluth 2010, a collaboration between Visit Duluth, UMD’s School of Fine Arts and the Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge 2010. Beginning July 28, Duluth’s harbor will welcome eight grand tall ships.

Visitors will tour the ships, sail aboard them and partake in a wide variety of festivities at Bayfront Park, including performances of “The Pirates of Penzance.”

Of course, the events in the 2010 Guide to Duluth continue to be focused around Duluth’s most popular year-round attraction, Lake Superior. The guide highlights the lake in all its beauty, as well as the bountiful outdoor opportunities it provides our visitors.

Finally, the 2010 Guide to Duluth promotes each of its tourism-related members. From attractions to lodging to restaurants and shops, visitors will find important descriptions about each of these members’ business.

More importantly, it helps visitors do business with them.

As a side note, a fun addition to the guide is a new section that lists “pet-friendly” lodging properties and special places and activities for visitors and their pets.

We hope you get a chance to pick up the all-new 2010 Guide to Duluth, our official kickoff to marketing Duluth this year. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover a few new places here that you’d like to visit.

You can pick up the 2010 Guide to Duluth by stopping by our information center at 21 W. Superior St., Suite 100, or call 722-4011 to speak with a travel information manager.