Continue to raise awareness of farms and farm tours.
VisitLex’s 2018 Visitors Guide and the VisitLex website are packed with information about attractions, accommodations, dining, tours, and events of all kinds, plus great maps, with one of them showing the locations of horse farms. The VisitLex website includes horse farms in both Fayette and other counties, which is beneficial for regional tourism. Lexington benefits when visitors stop in from other destinations, and is generally the home base for people exploring the central Kentucky region, meaning the bulk of the travel dollars are spent in Lexington’s local economy. Horse Country, Inc. horse farm and horse business tours are getting very popular. Ticket sales data shows that from October 2015 to June 2018 there have been a total of 72,222 tickets sold, or an average of 21,688 ticketed tours per year by Horse Country, Inc. That number does not include other horse farm tours by other tour agencies’ sales.
Marketing and advertising for horse farm tourism in Fayette County should be maximized and prioritized. With 59.2 square miles of equine farm land in the Rural Service Area, and another 42.23 square miles of farms with an equine and crop mix, that is a total of 101.4 square miles. In future printed visitor guides, adding more about the individual horse farm tours, corn mazes, etc. on farms located in Fayette County could help raise awareness of farms in Lexington. Additional partnerships between farms and VisitLex should be considered.