Visiting Easley? There'll Be An App for That

The Greater Easley Chamber of Commerce and the City of Easley want to put information about Easley restaurants, hotels and events at your fingertips.

Chamber President Cindy Hopkins said that the chamber, in partnership with the city, is developing a mobile app in conjunction with the redesign of the Chamber web site.

The app will be free to download.

Hopkins said the chamber and the city have wanted to develop a mobile app for some time.

She said the mobile app will help with tourism.

“The chamber serves as the tourism and visitors center for Easley,” Hopkins said. “We have newcomers and visitors here and information that we give out to those folks.”

The mobile app will make that information accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“If there are events, recreation tournaments, whatever events are bringing tourism and visitors to our community, they'll be able to download that mobile app, which will link to our membership database, which will let them find restaurants, hotel, retailers while they are here for those events,” Hopkins said.

The app will help “showcase our city,” she said.

“When people do come over for a Fourth of July festival or the Big League World Series, now that we're here, what else can we do?,” Hopkins said. “What else is in Easley? Where are the restaurants, where are the hotels, where are the retailers?”

Chamber officials found a vendor for their new website that also offered a mobile app feature.

“It was sort of a match made in heaven,” Hopkins said. “It seemed to work perfectly with what the city had wanted to do for a number of years.”

The app will promote not only chamber events, but events citywide, she said. The chamber's new web site will have a community calendar feature.

“We really want that web site to become a community hub,” Hopkins said. “We'll have a Chamber Events calendar and a community calendar as well. With the mobile app, folks will be able to access that. Hopefully, when they come to town for the first time, if they download our app, now they have it, and they can always check - what else is going on in Easley? Hopefully they'll be a return visitor, not just a one-time visitor.”

She said she hopes the community calendar feature will beneficial to residents as well.

“It'll take us some time to educate the community on that … to let people know if a church has an event going or a non-profit has a spaghetti supper going on,” Hopkins said. “But eventually, over time, that could be a place where everybody come to see what's going on. A lot of times you have four things going on on the same day and people are like, 'Gosh, I wish I had known that.'” Hopefully, this is an opportunity to allow people in the community to sort of plan their events in concert with other things that are going on and let families and citizens here know what's going on and what they can take advantage of.”

The new app will also be a useful tool in attracting new chamber members and retaining current ones.

“It's a win-win for us,” Hopkins said. “The chamber was looking for some upgrades and the city was looking for a stronger partner for the tourism piece, for us to step up and help with the tourism promotion of our community. And it's a win for the city, because they have the mobile app, so when people come to town, it's easier for them to promote everything in Easley, not just the event that they're here for.

“It's definitely a value add for our members,” she continued. “Not only now are they just on our website, but our members have the ability to be on the mobile app for any visitors who are coming to town or passing through town or maybe just want to come to Easley for the weekend.”

She said she hopes the app will be live in May.

“We're excited about it,” Hopkins said. “The challenge is getting it done.”