When the Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau set out a few years ago to market Kalispell as a tourist destination — rather than a drive-through on the way to Whitefish or Glacier National Park — task No. 1 was to launch a compelling website.

“It’s the most important promotion tool in our toolbox,” said Diane Medler, director of the visitor bureau. “Everything we do points people to the website. It enables us to tell who we are, to display our personality, how we’re unique.”

Since discoverkalispell.com came online in July 2011, it has played a major role in forging a new identity for Kalispell’s tourist industry.  With bold images and the theme — “Discovery in Every Direction” — discoverkalispell.com has become a go-to site for tourists who not only want to find out more about Northwest Montana, but who want to make informed decisions about where to stay and what activity paths to follow.

The Discover Kalispell website pulls most of Northwest Montana into one easy-to-navigate site— lodging, food, activities, arts, shopping, special events and amenities for meeting and convention planners.

“Lodging and our lodging packages consistently receive the most traffic,” Medler said. “Another popular area of the website is day trips and tours. We give suggested itineraries, everything from ‘girls day out’ to ‘things to do at Whitefish Mountain Resort in the summer.’”

Website visits are carefully tracked and are growing rapidly, with an average of 3,643 unique visits a month as of December and more than 13,000 page views. And though 72 percent of the visits come from the United States, Canadian website visits have increased 98 percent from 2011.

PartnersCreative in Missoula has managed and created the website since its beginning.

“They were starting from scratch,” Suzanne Elfstrom, director of public relations and social media for PartnersCreative. “They had no logo, no color palette, no graphic standards, no messaging pillars, no branding direction at all.”

The Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau was formed in 2010, and while the Flathead Convention and Visitors Bureau had a website at the time with similar goals, Medler said it was targeted more to the entire valley, rather than steering visitors toward Kalispell.

Elfstrom said Kalispell needed a unique positioning statement to make it stand out among the thousands of towns that target travelers.

“Kalispell is really that base-camp entity, but we didn’t want to just call it ‘base camp,’” she said. “Their tagline is ‘Discovery in Every Direction,’ which gives you a starting point. You can do so many things within a day’s worth of where you’re staying.

“Kalispell is not a resort town, it’s a working town, so the people you meet when you go to dine or shop, their warmth and friendliness comes through. It’s very relatable for people coming to visit here.”

One of the ways that discoverkalispell.com accomplishes that is with its prominent imagery of local faces and places.

“We wanted it to be very bold and big,” Elfstrom said. “We turned the photography, which we did a custom shoot for, into the messaging pillars. ‘Discover Balance’ talks about how you can go hiking, go shopping and go to museums. ‘Discover Friendly’ means that Kalispell is working people who love their town, not seasonal employees.”

PartnersCreative built the site so the visitor bureau can manage the content, for the most part.

“Now she [Medler] can go in and add lodging packages all day long,” Elfstrom said. “It allows the content to stay fresh and up to date.”

Business reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4439 or by email at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com.