Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501090011
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FORT CHISWELL LENGTH: Medium
The center is already operating, but will be equipped soon with the latest computer and video technology in its quarters off Interstate 81-77. It is already loaded with brochures, exhibits, artwork and examples of visitor attractions in Southwest Virginia, but there is more to come.
The project resulted from an unusual combination of public-private partnership efforts, including: the U.S. Forest Service which operates it; Virginia Tech which is providing much of the technological expertise; the private mall which made space available for it; Virginia's Southwest Blue Ridge Highlands consortium of tourism businesses in the counties and cities west of Roanoke County, and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, who secured $250,000 in federal funds for the project.
The Forest Service is working with Charlotte Reed, economic development specialist in tourism at Virginia Tech, on a touch-screen computer system to go into the center. ``She has us in touch with the computer people,'' said Lou Brossy, Wythe District ranger for Jefferson National Forest.
Reed said the Visitor Center has involved people from three colleges and four departments at Virginia Tech. ``It's just been a very exciting project,'' she said.
The computer system will use both slides and video to show visitors what is available for the areas in which they are interested. It will not include sound, but that capability could be added later.
A prototype of the touch-screen system could be in place at the center before the end of this month. Visitors who use it during January and February will help determine what data goes into it when the permanent system is installed, he said, based on what interests they show.
Andy Honaker at Tech's College of Architecture has been in charge of that part of the project. Two graduate students are working on the programming, while a third is gathering data on the attractions.
Reed said the tourism businesses in the region probably do not yet realize the value of having their attraction in the data-bank. ``I think it's a real state-of-the-art Visitor Center for the Forest Service,'' she said.
Tech will also develop a training manual for forestry personnel to use the system and upgrade it as needed. Some attractions, such as parks and rivers, will need only occasional changes, she said, while an enterprise like a restaurant or a bed-and-breakfast might have to be upgraded as often as every quarter.
Much of the data is being provided through the Blue Ridge Highlands tourism organization.
The original plans called for a four-screen system but, with the cutbacks that have happened at various levels, Brossy said one or two terminals are more likely now. ``Maybe if we're lucky and we get the demand later, we'll get more,'' he said.
A full-time marketing manager was also envisioned for the center, but that now seems doubtful because the Forest Service has cut back by about 4,000 employees over the past year and plans to eliminate about that many more in the next three to four years. ``The odds of getting that kind of augmentation is just not there,'' Brossy said.
The center is now run by volunteers and by those in the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a U.S. Department of Labor program to help move people age 55 or older within certain income guidelines into private sector jobs.
The mall has proved to be a good place to station such people, because those working under the program at the visitors' center meet employers at the various mall stores and sometimes find job openings suited to them. ``We have had some people from the visitors' center go from there out into the stores in the mall,'' Brossy said.
The center also has a theater, which will offer a video being produced at Virginia Tech emphasizing the 19 Southwest Virginia counties covered by the center.
Reed said the complete six-minute video will not be ready by May, when the center is tentatively scheduled for a dedication ceremony. Those putting it together want visuals from all four seasons, and they still have winter and spring to go. But Tech will have some video material available for the theater before the tailor-made version is finished in September.
The database for the touch-screen system could be exported to other localities in Southwest Virginia, but the directions it would give to reach the points of interest in this part of the state would be from the starting point of Factory Merchants Mall.
The original center opened in smaller quarters at Factory Merchants Mall in August 1989. Its present quarters at the mall were designed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Design Shop in Washington.
``We're proud of what we have and the economy that we've achieved in doing it,'' Brossy said.
by CNB