The new Connecticut welcome sign, proclaiming “Home of the Pizza Capital of the United States,” along I-95 at the state border in Greenwich, Conn. Sept. 5, 2024.
Tyler Sizemore/Hearst Connecticut Media
Connecticut officials are betting that the state’s biggest obsessions can turn passion into tourism, whether that means pizza pride or the fandom behind the state’s Christmas Movie Trail.
In recent years, the Connecticut Statewide Marketing & Tourism office has been leaning into one of the foods the state is most known for: pizza. In 2025, the office launched the Connecticut Pizza Trail. The trail highlights the “top 100 pizzerias” (121 locations in total, with some businesses having multiple eateries), noting whether they are apizza, Neapolitan, Greek, thick-crust or tavern-style pies. According to Connecticut Statewide Marketing & Tourism Director Morgan Nyerick, the trail was created to capture the already-existing passion around Connecticut pizza and culinary experiences to try to bring more people to the state.
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A look at the Connecticut pizza billboard located at the intersection of 9th Ave. & 40th St.
Contributed by Connecticut Office of Statewide Marketing & Tourism
The trail was part of a larger pizza campaign, which also included taking shots at other states that are known for their pizza. In 2024, the state put up welcome signs saying that it was “Home of the Pizza Capital of the United States.” This drew the attention of “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, who poked fun at the effort. Along with the pizza trail, the Connecticut Office of Statewide Marketing & Tourism posted billboards across New York City in June 2025, with messages like “The Nation’s Best Pizza, Not You New York.”
“We just tapped into something that is already a heated debate, something that people are very passionate about and eager to give their two cents and their opinion…and so we just kind of held a light up to passion that already exists. And I think that’s why it took off the way it did,” Nyerick says.
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A pizza throne created by artist Michael Pollack was displayed after a news conference celebrating National Pizza Day at BAR on Crown Street in New Haven on February 7, 2025.
Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media
The state also partnered with artist and founder of the New Haven Pizza Club Michael Pollack. Among his works are a metal statue of a pizza slice outside of Modern Apizza in New Haven, titled “Pizza Capital Monument” and a “pizza throne” sculpture to celebrate National Pizza Day made from Connecticut highway signs.
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“It kind of was like a perfect storm, right? Because I had a similar vision to the state, and we’re on parallel paths, and then all of a sudden, we’re coming together. We’re like, hey, like, Connecticut’s amazing,” Pollack says. “I really also wanted my work to have a real purpose. I knew that at the purest form, like, that’s what art is about. Art tells the truth and art has a purpose, or else it’s just a craft.”
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While the state didn’t do any paid collaborations with influencers, Nyerick says they did help spread the word about the campaigns. Barstool Sports founder and pizza reviewer Dave Portnoy highlighted the pizza campaign, even telling NBC CT that Connecticut was “the best pizza state in the country.” The tourism office also invited influencers like Taste of New Haven’s Colin Caplan and Daymon Patterson (known online as Daym Drops) to special events during the campaign.
Emcee Colin Caplan speaks at a news conference celebrating National Pizza Day at BAR on Crown Street in New Haven on February 7, 2025.
Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media
“Like with those campaigns, we actually didn’t even need to engage in paid collaborations early on, because it was just picked up immediately by them, and they were all on their own creating content,” Pollack says. “They were a huge part of the reason for the virality upon launch and helped contribute to that.”
The Pizza Capital Monument at Modern Apizza.
Joseph Tucci / Hearst CT Media
Nyerick says there have been “extraordinary” results with the pizza campaign. Among the benefits were a 68% increase in nationwide Google searches for “Connecticut pizza,” a 37% increase in long-distance visitation to Connecticut (500 to 3,000 miles), more than 4,000 media placements and more than 19 billion earned media impressions, data provided by the tourism office showed. During the height of the “rage bait” billboard phase of the pizza campaign, there was a 22% increase in day trips from NYC to New Haven and a 12% rise in overnight stays from New York City to New Haven.
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Aside from the pizza trail, the state launched the Connecticut Oyster Trail in 2024 to highlight local seafood. It highlights 45 locations, including oyster farms, seafood stores and restaurants. Nyerick says that the oyster trail generated over 2 billion earned media impressions. She adds that while the tourism office isn’t behind other trails such as the wine trail, the beer trail and the newly launched CT Craft Beverage Trail, it does what it can to draw attention to them.
“Comparatively, the pizza and Christmas trails were just so huge that it looks small, but it was actually a success in its own right, especially given the fact that oysters are not something Connecticut has been known for,” Nyerick said.
In recent years, Connecticut has also been embracing its reputation as the “home of the Christmas movie.” The state launched the nation’s first Christmas Movie Trail in 2024. It highlights places throughout the state that were used as filming locations for 22 different holiday movies as well as businesses and restaurants in each area that were featured in the movies. Nyerick says that the tourism office created the trail to lean into travel trends such as set-jetting (when tourists visit destinations featured in media) as well as the passion of people who enjoy holiday movies. Nyerick adds that the trail was in part inspired by seeing how fans of the hit show “Gilmore Girls” flock to the Nutmeg State to see areas that inspired the show and for fan festivals.
Gov. Ned Lamont at the Connecticut Christmas Movie Trail launch event in Wethersfield in 2024
Courtesy of Craig Rosenberg
“Here there is a community and people who just love and watch those movies (year-round), there’s such a huge fan base. When those movies come here to film, there’s just such a response that you see in the public. Like the excitement and the enthusiasm from the towns and municipalities and from the residents coming out to watch them,” Nyerick said.
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Jessy Schram, who plays Juniper, and Chandler Massey, Sawyer, are leading actors in the Hallmark movie Mystic Christmas which was filmed at Mystic Seaport in May 2023.
Bryan Haeffele / Hearst Connecticut Media
When Connecticut launched the Christmas Movie Trail during an event in 2024, filmmaker Andrew Gernhard was there alongside state officials and actors like Erin Cahill to help celebrate. He worked on bringing “Holiday for Heroes,” “Sugar Plum Twist,” “The Noel Diary,” “Mystic Christmas,” “The Holiday Fix Up” and “Next Stop, Christmas” to life. He said that while it’s great that people come to see the film locations, he hopes that the trail will also help shed light on everything else the state has to offer.
“I love movies, of course, because that’s my main job. But I love travel, and I love food and I love destinations and so all of this is all interconnected,” Gernhard says. “Connecticut is a great place. A lot of movies have been shot here. It’s got great visuals, great people, great businesses. And I think there’s an opportunity here. We just got to grab it.”
The Connecticut Christmas Movie Trail was unveiled at a ceremony in Wethersfield.
Abby Weiss / Hearst Connecticut Media Group
Nyerick notes that data shows that the Christmas Movie Trail has also seen positive results. Data provided by the tourism office showed that December traffic to the Christmas trail site in 2024, when the trail launched, was 10,083, with an average read time of 3 minutes. In 2025, the December traffic was 19,485, up 93% from the prior year, with an average read time of around 2 minutes. Jimmy Fallon from “The Tonight Show” also covered the Christmas Movie Trail on his show.
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Gernhard says he loves to work on films in the Nutmeg State; however, it can be tough to get studios to come. While the state offers up to a 30% tax credit for production and post-production expenses, there have been efforts to reduce it and other areas like Buffalo, New York, can offer higher incentives. Even with reduced filming, he wants to continue to support his own state and plans to announce more travel-related projects in the future.
Erin Cahill at the Connecticut Christmas Movie Trail launch event in Wethersfield in 2024
CRAIG ROSENBERG/Courtesy of Craig Rosenberg
Pizza, oyster and movie trails will not be the only ones that the Tourism Office plans to create. Nyerick says in June they are planning to launch a “TV to Table” trail that highlights Connecticut restaurants that have been featured in shows like “Cupcake Wars” and “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” She also says the office is in the early stages of planning to create a “spooky trail,” centered on Connecticut’s supernatural folklore.
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