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Visit Jessamine, the county’s joint tourism commission, has worked for a year to bring a digital kiosk and wayfinding signs to the county. Now, they’ve finally arrived.

Using American Rescue Plan Act funding including a match by the tourism commission and assistance from the City of Nicholasville for the signage, Executive Director Charla Reed and the the tourism commission have continued to beef up the county allure and information accessibility for tourists through the signs and kiosks. “We decided to make an investment and put money into [both of] these projects,” Reed said.

Including mostly ARPA, the tourism commission put $34,000 towards the kiosks and $22,000 for the signage. Reed said all governments in the county advocated for these project.

To install the signs, Reed worked with Nicholasville’s Geographic Information system administrator, Paul Bradford. She went with him to each intersection, and mapped out the existing signage. Reed then applied to install the signs and have their designs approved through the Kentucky Department of Transportation to ensure they meet state road requirements. 

“One of the things we wanted to do is to bring people into our counties off the main roads. So, we decided to look into wayfinding because other communities were doing it and it’s been successful in bringing in people off the main road into our towns, and into other towns,” said Charla Reed, executive director of Visit Jessamine.

Wayfinding, Reed said, is a way to get people into Jessamine County and inform residents of nearby attractions. “It was our goal to get people something attractive, something that would catch peoples eyes and bring them into town and to know you’re passing by a town, you’re not just on random roads.” 

Right now, the signs highlight Asbury University, Asbury Theological Seminary, the downtown shopping

district, the Brannon Crossing shopping district, Keene, the upcoming Jessamine County Visitor’s Center located in the old jail on Main Street

“I love [the signs], I’m excited about it. At the tourism commission, we’re all very proud and excited that we have something that is artistic but yet functional all at the same time, Reed said.

The primary digital kiosk is located outside of the old jail on Main Street, with a mobile kiosk available at Camp Nelson. The mobile kiosk, Reed said, will likely be brought to large events like the Kentucky Wine and Vine festival “so we can use that to track [where visitors are coming from] and to give people the opportunity to find out other neat things we have in our county.”

“We devoted one large kiosk for outdoors to put it in front of the Visitor’s Center so that if it is not staffed or it’s night time or it’s the weekend when there isn’t anybody there, then anybody can still walk up at any time and find out where to stay, play, eat. There’s even video on there,” Reed said. “The neat thing about having it at the Visitor’s Center, is no matter what people are looking for, if we’re not there, it’s like a 24 hour attendant promoting Jessamine County.”

On the kiosks, people can take selfie photos and send it to their email, build itineraries, search through local events, and search through the county’s attractions. 

“All these things, it took a lot of time for us to be able to get them contracted out, to get them fixed, to get all the details that go back and forth in the creation of these kiosks. It just takes time to develop it and to get them installed. The development of the digital aspect took a long time. So we just wanted to make sure it was right and that we had everything represented the same that imitates our website as well. We had to work with designers on all that to make sure that not only did it work correctly but that it looked streamlined with all our new logos and videos and everything to make sure that people are getting the same information across the board,” Reed said. “We wanted to make sure we had a logo of some sort on each one, so that people understood the continuity of things and that everything is the same.” She added that these efforts of continuity or to be able to achieve a look for the county that people recognize.

“It’s fun, we have a lot here in Jessamine county and to be able to shout that out to the world in different ways and different venues, it’s just… all the logos, the website, the kiosks, the wayfinding signage, it gives us a good brand and a good name and it’s exciting. It’s exciting to know that we’re making a difference for the future in our county and hopefully tourism and just brand recognition from regional areas too.”

Reed thanked the board including representatives from WIlmore, Nicholasville, and Jessamine County for making these projects happen “I have a great board, and we all work together.”