Yates County Set Intentional Goals – and Grew Sales of The Keuka Lake Wine Trail Pass By 150% in 2025

Background

The Keuka Lake Wine Trail is a membership-based organization made up of local wineries in Yates and Steuben Counties, New York. They’ve had an organized wine trail for over forty years, and the Yates County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Office handles all of the administration and marketing for the trail. The initiative includes a paid tasting pass that allows wine lovers to pay for tastings at multiple wineries. The revenue generated from the sales of the pass helps fund the marketing of the wine trail. 

“They all agreed that the cost of doing tastings is just a cost of them doing business,” said Chelsea Race, the Director of Marketing for the Yates County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Office. “They make their money selling wine. As long as we are bringing in quality guests that are buying wine, they feel the passport is worth it.”

It started as a paper passport many years ago, but Race said it was a priority to digitize it. Once the paid wine tasting pass was moved to a digital format, the organization saw some immediate results. “I think the logistics of it have been super helpful,” she said. “We’ve been able to save on printing costs, and since we do a lot of digital marketing, having a digital passport is extremely important to make those campaigns successful.”

The Goal for 2025 

The Keuka Lake Wine Trail Tasting Passport has been a key asset to the destination for years. Race said, “Being a rural destination where we don't have major attractions, offering experiences like this is important.” After taking the paid experience from a paper to digital format, they saw even more room for improvement. In 2025, Race and her team set an intentional goal for the tasting pass. “Because it's one of the main revenue sources for the wine trail, it was important that we increase sales in 2025.”

The Solution 

The Yates County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Office shared their goal with their marketing agency, Travel Alliance Partners, and together with Bandwango’s technology platform, made strategic adjustments to the pass and its marketing. Here are a few changes that happened as part of that initiative. 

• More Intentional Campaigns

“We've been running paid campaigns for quite a few years,” said Race, “But we really honed in on our messaging for our paid campaigns. When we track our analytics, it's our Meta and Google search campaigns that are the biggest drivers.”

• Utilizing Influencers

Race shared, “We brought in influencers, they used the pass, and they showed how easy it was to use.”

• Optimization of Web Pages

“We worked on updating the wording and SEO on our website. We just optimized those passport pages, so we would rank better in search,” she explained.

• Adjustment of Pass Price

“We decreased the price of the passport a little in 2025. We didn’t think it was super overpriced, but the decision was driven by some research that Travel Alliance Partners did,” she said. The current price of the pass is $45 and includes six tasting flights. She shared that communicating the value of the price is also important. “We updated the content on our website to make sure we communicated exactly how much they were going to be saving.”

• Addition of More Options 

She took advantage of the opportunity to have unlimited passes with Bandwango, and decided to create another variation of the pass. “We wanted to add another pass that was around the same price point, but something completely different that would attract a totally different audience so they didn’t compete with each other.” The result of that was the Keuka Lake Wine Trail Glass Pass that grants passholders a full glass of wine at six wineries instead of flights. She said, “This is really great for locals or people that live within an hour that are more familiar with the wineries.”

• Events

Wine tasting events have been a part of the Keuka Lake Wine Trail’s strategy for years, but like the original passport, these first events used paper tickets. That’s changed too, though, and they now use Bandwango’s event ticketing software. According to Race, that’s been a game-changer. “This digital version really just makes it easier for the wineries. Putting on any event for a small business is not easy. There's a lot of things to do, especially if you have a small team. Having the digital version is also easier for us as an administrative office to handle the ticket sales, so it’s a win-win for both parties.” The signature events serve as introductions to the wine trail and are targeted to new visitors. These also happen during non-peak times to give the wineries a boost in sales when they need it the most. Ticket holders move from winery to winery, and are able to choose from various tickets that have different starting points. (Spoiler alert: People are spending money at the wineries and staying overnight because of these events.) 

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The Keuka Lake Wine Trail’s 2026 events include: 

• April: Sips and Succulents
• June: Wine & Cheese
• November: Handcrafted Holiday

Results

So did the changes make a difference? Yes – and the results extended beyond just more pass sales (though they totally surpassed their goals for that, too.)

• Increased Pass Sales

Race smiled as she shared the results of their mission, saying, “In 2025, we had a 150% increase in passport sales for the Keuka Lake Wine Trail."

• The Wineries Are Making Money

The end goal of the wine trail itself is to serve as a way for the wineries to attract more customers and make more money – and that’s happening as well. Race shared that the wineries are happy with the customers who are coming through with the passport and as a result of the events. She sends out post-event surveys to event attendees and specifically asks if people bought wine during the events. Based on last year’s event surveys, “Everyone at least bought one to two bottles during their time here,” she said.

• It’s Helping Businesses in the Entire County

Recent state-level data shows that Yates County had the second-highest increase in sales tax revenue in the entire state in 2025. To outrank so many thriving counties in New York is impressive for this destination, and is proof that their marketing is paying off. The wine trail has become an experience that is bringing people to the area and helping all businesses. She said, “People are spending more money while they're here.”

• People are Staying Overnight 

She also includes questions in the post-event surveys about overnight stays. That has helped her be able to see the impact that wine events have on their local lodging establishments. She said, “Depending on the specific event, 50-70% of people spend the night because they attend an event.”

What’s Next

“We originally signed up for Bandwango specifically for the Keuka Lake Wine Trail Tasting Pass, and now we're using it way beyond what we originally wanted to use it for,” she said. 

Her team is excited to find new ways to use the platform and they’ve made another goal for 2026. “We want to consider making our influencer marketing more trackable.” 

They are currently using promo codes as a way to give free passes to people they’re working with, but their plan is to offer influencers a unique discount code as a way to track their efforts in influencer marketing. Using Bandwango’s reporting data, they will be able to easily see which influencers are showing the most ROI. 

5 Tips for Success From the Yates County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Office 

The wine tasting pass has been a huge success for the wineries around Keuka Lake and the Yates County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Office has created a blueprint that can easily be duplicated in other areas. 

“I absolutely would suggest it to really any destination, but especially rural, smaller destinations like us. Creating these experiences within our destination is beneficial and helps bring new people here,” said Race.

She’s shared a few of her personal tips for success to help other destinations who may want to create their own wine trail and tasting pass. 

• Find the Right Partners

“Having partners that feel like an extension of our team is crucial for such a small team like us. We’re lucky to have Bandwango as a tech partner and Travel Alliance Partners as a marketing partner.” 

• Communicate With Your Wineries

“We meet on a monthly basis. Being such a small group, we’re able to have open conversations. We ask them what’s working, what’s not. The tasting pass is definitely a program they all believe in and stand behind.”

• Promote Gifting of the Pass

“We have verbiage on our website saying the pass makes a great gift. We do that in our email campaigns too – especially around the holidays.” 

• Be Strategic When Choosing Influencers

“We usually work with niche micro-influencers. I think it's important for us to work with people that have higher engagement. We don't typically work with influencers that have hundreds of thousands of followers. Someone that has 15,000 followers, but engagement rates that are super high - that’s what we look for. A lot of the influencers we've brought in are either from New York State, or within four to six hours from here.”

• Make the Most of Your Bandwango License and Use it to the Fullest 

“I think for small destinations with smaller budgets like us, it’s important to prioritize technology like Bandwango, and then really utilize it for all it can do. We really look at it like Bandwango as an extension of our team. So the investment is totally worth it for us – especially because we’re using it in so many different funnels and channels.”

The Yates County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Office is excited about the ability to create unlimited passes now. Some of the others they’ve created include

• Paws and Pours: A dog-friendly wine pass that serves as a fundraising tool for the Humane Society of Yates County
• Finger Lakes Crafts and Drafts: A paid beer and spirits tasting pass that is a partnership with their neighboring county 
• Shop Small Season Passport: A seasonal savings pass that is utilized during the holiday season

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As we toast to the success of our friends in Yates County and the Keuka Lake Wine Trail, we’re also eager to help other communities who want to promote their area’s local wineries. If you would like to learn more about creating a paid tasting experience or if you want to discuss ticketing software for wine events, we’re happy to chat. Reach out to us to set up a free demo.