As a geoforum owner myself, you're gonna need to pump it full of content.
I'd suggest XFMG first to just add pictures and descriptions of famous keyword places, individually or in albums as tours. Then maybe a blog to write about specific things to do. A calendar for events might help, but I'd hold off until after COVID-19 on that investment.
The chit chat can remain small on the forum... but I'd expect more members and content after a month.
You have 1/2 the population of your geographical area than mine, but mine lacks due to circumstances I'm hoping XF will implement. I still add content daily and grow week over week; Google Performance reflects that too when I keep adding keyword strong unique content that people want to see—AdSense isn't too shabby neither.
Good luck. It took me about 9 months to get a geo forum (more of a complete CMS pack now) off the ground, with adding relevant content every day consistently. Your competition, FB groups, you need to "own" too; I have several geo niche groups with an average of like 2k members each (unsure of overlap as if you're a member of 1 group, you're automatically accepted to others) that my now ~9k targeted likes Page pumps content to for an instant flood of 1k views a share, with the content ranking organically thereafter.