Goochland County to Use Arrivalist Data to Target Visitor Marketing

Goochland County Economic Development announced on March 2, 2026 that the county has been accepted into the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s Arrivalist State Dispersion Portal grant program and will now have access to Arrivalist’s travel‑behavior data dashboard. The county says the dashboard will inform marketing decisions and outreach to better target where visitors live.

“Goochland County Economic Development is excited to announce participation in the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s (VTC) Arrivalist State Dispersion Portal grant program. Through this program, Goochland County has access to Arrivalist’s data dashboard via Virginia Tourism Corporation, which provides insights into travel patterns and tourist behavior,” the county’s announcement states. Arrivalist provides the dashboard through VTC rather than directly to the county, according to the announcement.

The Arrivalist tools available to Goochland include advanced visitor analytics. “Arrivalist is providing advanced data that analyzes visitor behavior, such as where visitors are coming from, the days of the week they are traveling, and length of stay,” the county material says. The county cited a specific insight from Arrivalist: “For example, the data demonstrates Goochland having a strong draw for day trip tourism from the Richmond region, with increased trips in the summer.”

Goochland’s tourism action plan already lists concrete marketing and operational steps that the county intends to amplify with data. The plan calls to “Use on all marketing materials,” “Upload materials to tourism website,” “Publicize materials on social media and send to media contacts,” and “Build stronger relationships with hotel, and local tourism destinations to cross promote and provide information on things to do in Goochland.” The plan also directs staff to “Create a resource guide for film, sporting events, and event venues.”

Targeted deliverables recorded in the plan include developing “a comprehensive library of marketing materials,” creating “a minimum of 10 variations of marketing materials,” and implementing Strategy 3.1.4 to “Increase awareness of tourism assets within Goochland County and region by creating a tourism ambassador program.” The plan identifies Objective 3.3 as “Develop Tourism Assets” and lists targeted results such as identifying additional funding sources, building external tourism partnerships, and spending ARPA tourism funds.

Local organizational owners named in the plan are Economic Development Staff, Parks & Recreation Staff, the Agricultural Center, agricultural businesses, County Administration, and Community Engagement Staff. External partners identified include the Virginia Tourism Corporation and Arrivalist, and the plan points to hotels, local tourism destinations and media contacts as cross-promotion partners.

The county plan includes timeline entries that pre-date the Arrivalist acceptance: expected timelines read “January 2024 and Sustain” for marketing materials and funding actions and “July 2023 and Sustain” for sharing Goochland’s founding story on the website. The announcement materials do not list grant dollar amounts, a designated county spokesperson, or a concrete start date for data-driven campaigns; the original brief contains a truncated sentence that ends after “the county says it will.” With Arrivalist access and the county’s existing Objective 3.1 and 3.3 strategies, Goochland is positioned to use origin, timing and length-of-stay data to concentrate marketing on Richmond-area day-trippers and to refine how tourism dollars are spent.