Garrett
Ziegler
As a Sustainable Tourism and Community Food Systems Educator with MSU Extension Garrett has extensive experience supporting local tourism development programs. He has served as both an organizer and an assessor of several First Impressions Tourism programs in Michigan and has a specific focus on outdoor recreation and sustainability in the tourism industry. Through his food systems work Garrett has focused on many projects and programs but works extensively on agritourism and local land use, including the intersection of agritourism and outdoor recreation. Garrett received his masters degree in Sustainable Tourism from East Carolina University. When he’s not at work you can find him exploring one of Michigan’s many trails with his wife and dog or paddling his canoe on the Ausable River.
Sessions with Garrett
Small towns, big potential
3:15PM-4PM
Many rural communities have everything they need to attract visitors — except the tools to identify and organize those assets. That’s where Michigan State University Extension’s Rural Tourism Assessment (RTA) comes in.
This four-phase, community-driven model helps rural areas map their tourism potential, gather feedback from fresh eyes, and build a strategic, locally led plan for growth. Walk through the RTA process and hear how it played out in Roscommon County, where more than 120 stakeholders — from villages to DMOs — came together to create a shared tourism vision
Northern Lights
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