Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 7, 1995 TAG: 9502070049
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
Howard Barrett, captain of the Pioneer Maid, which offers boat cruises on Claytor Lake and New River, said the company also will build a dry dock facility for the boat and do some restoration work.
The $125,000 package includes a $50,000 low-interest loan from Southwest Development Financing Inc., an enterprise fund established in the 9th Congressional District by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, for tourism entrepreneurs. It is the first loan to be made from the new $1.5 million fund, which will offer similar loans to tourism-related businesses that meet certain criteria.
Central Fidelity Bank is lending Howard and Joyce Barrett another $50,000; the couple will provide the remaining $25,000.
``We hope to start construction within the next week or two, and hopefully we'll have it completed by the first of May,'' Howard Barrett said. That's when New River Cruise Co. begins taking individual reservations for cruises. It begins charter cruises for bus tours in April.
``Part of our original plan when we opened the business was to remodel the building where our office is,'' he said. ``What we're going to do is give it kind of a rustic look.''
The main room will become a gift shop featuring Virginia products such as peanuts, country ham, apple butter and items produced by area crafts people. A small restaurant in the building will offer a limited menu of country foods. There will also be a visitors center.
The Barretts plan to have country music groups entertaining on Saturday afternoons, along with country crafts exhibits and activities.
The Barretts also will do some work on the Pioneer Maid's passenger areas. ``It should make the boat quite a bit more elegant,'' Howard Barrett said.
The couple is starting another business, too, he said. ``We're sort of a travel agent in reverse.''
Most travel agents send tourists to other destinations, he explained, while he and his wife attend travel shows to bring tourists to this part of Virginia. Their success in luring bus tours to the area has encouraged them to expand this activity.
Already, the couple is working with tourism businesses from the Natural Bridge Restaurant to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon to offer package tours. In this area, tours would likely include the Radford outdoor drama ``The Long Way Home,'' Old Newbern, the Factory Merchants Mall at Fort Chiswell, a Civil War battlefield at Saltville and Pulaski Main Street.
Barrett said 47 visitors on a single bus tour spent about $7,500 at businesses along Pulaski's Main Street in a couple hours last fall. Motels get 90 percent of their business from tourism, he said. But the money filters through other places in town.
``Practically every business from clothing stores to grocery stores get about 18 percent of their business from tourism,'' he said. ``Tourism dollars eventually get to everybody in the community.''
The Barretts plan to add a second boat in a few years, a 400-passenger, Mississippi-type stern-wheeler. The Pioneer Maid would then be used only for smaller cruises and activities like weddings.
Since securing approval on his loan request, Barrett has been named to the board of Southwest Financing Development. He said he would like to provide information to other tourism businesses interested in expanding on how to apply for the loans. ``I wish something like that had been available when we started up,'' he said.
Further information is available from Barrett at 674-9344 or Jerry Brown in Marion at 783-7624.
by CNB