Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992 TAG: 9203290018
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Daniel Howes
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Talk up tourism, as a tiny clique started to do a few years back, and the politicos would get glassy-eyed and start uttering words like "priorities" and "limited resources."
Local government contributions to the Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau were - still are - embarrassingly paltry, outstripped by many communities a fraction the size of greater Roanoke. Political leaders simply haven't seen the dollars and cents in tourism.
Folks here aren't big on the "vision thing" - just ask former Explore guru Bern Ewert or Smart Road proponent Dick Robers. "You have to remember that in Roanoke," says City Councilman Bev Fitzpatrick Jr., "it sometimes takes people a long time to see what's going on."
Maybe they're beginning to see the light: City Council members now are chanting the tourism mantra, and their challengers have joined the chorus. Roanoke County, whose $25,000 contribution to the valleywide visitors' bureau long has been ridiculed by tourism advocates, has plans to increase its annual contribution to $35,000.
More encouraging, the county has made tourism the centerpiece of its new economic development strategy for the next few years, signaling a dramatic change from its narrow focus on industrial development. And, come next month, the board of supervisors will get a tourism dog-and-pony show - another positive sign.
Even rural Craig County is clamoring for a piece of the action. The county, more than half of it dominated by Jefferson National Forest, wants to join the valley convention and visitors bureau. They've seen the state numbers - visitors to the forest jumped 23 percent last year over 1990 - and they know what they mean:
Money.
"We're succeeding in educating folks that tourism is a viable form of economic development," says David Saunders, a Roanoke real estate developer and member of the governor's Tourism and Travel Services Advisory Board.
"We're picking up momentum. Let's face it: It's politically popular," he says. "Who's going to pay for the increasing costs" of public services? "It's either [higher] real estate taxes or a new revenue stream."
A recession, an election and a changing economy appear to be focusing the politicians' collective mind. Listen more closely: politicians are selling tourism because it doesn't cost local taxpayers the way industrial recruitment does, what with all the burdens of providing services, educating the children of new workers and the like.
Sound familiar, kind of like the '80s?
For now, though, the politicians appear converted. But there's more. Local tourism boosters like Saunders and House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, also credit the shift to some reordered priorities - and back-channel maneuvering - at the state level.
"I think the firing and rehiring of [state Tourism Director] Pat McMahon sent a clear message in Richmond that there has to be more attention given to tourism and Southwest Virginia needs to get its fair share," Cranwell says.
McMahon, for his part, says he was "never fired. Period. If I was, nobody ever got around to it." He says that last fall, after mulling several offers in the private sector, he drafted a letter of resignation. But Gov. Douglas Wilder intervened, ultimately meeting privately with McMahon.
"If anything, my conversation with the governor was [that] we agreed to keep doing what we'd been doing," McMahon said, denying that he felt any pressure from Western Virginia tourism advocates who had openly criticized state tourism efforts here.
"We've found a lot more pieces and we're taking advantage of them," he says. "We're just selling more."
Consumers seem to be buying. Recessions are good for Virginia's travel and tourism industry. People in the populous Northeast and some parts of the Midwest, increasingly strapped in lean times, take shorter trips to the Old Dominion for history and relaxation.
"People keep talking about destination attractions," Saunders says. "The mountains are a destination." Traffic along the Blue Ridge Parkway surged by nearly 236,000 visitors last year, state tourism figures show. Meanwhile, North Carolina saw traffic on its portion of the parkway drop 807,000.
That's good news for parkway places like Roanoke, what McMahon calls a "good turnaround point" for travelers driving north or south on the parkway. And that may explain the dramatic 31 percent jump in visits to "Roanoke attractions" and the 17 percent increase in visits to the Roanoke visitors' center.
"Yeah, our numbers are up and the percentages are great," says J. Richard Wells, president of the convention and visitors' bureau. "But it's kind of like the Roanoke County [increase from] $25,000 to $35,000 - it's relative."
McMahon agrees. Even though Roanoke saw an increase in tourist traffic last year, "they have a long way to go yet. The increase is based on small numbers."
Indeed. The valley's joint tourism budget - now about $284,000 - just won't cut it, tourism advocates say, calling for sharp increases to fund expanded marketing efforts. Says Wells: "We need a million dollar budget if we're going to get out there and effectively compete" with Asheville, N.C., and Richmond.
by CNB