ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 29, 1996 TAG: 9604290084
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE SILVER
YOUR APRIL 14 editorial (``Increase spending on tourism'') concluded: ``We think we're better than Asheville. It's time to take a hard look at the numbers." The editorial would have best been titled ``To dream the impossible dream.''
I've had the opportunity to share the Asheville and Roanoke regions as my homes. I've compared how the two cities respond to social issues, controversy, diversity and ethnic soul-searching. I know Asheville, and Roanoke can never be better than Asheville until we take a hard look at ourselves.
Any good salesman will tell you to sell yourself first and stand proudly behind your product, and folks will come back time and time again with their friends and neighbors. Asheville succeeds as a good salesman because it has a great product - its people - and tourists return there to visit the people, not the hospitality industry. Southern hospitality isn't a born-and-bred skill; it's a learned entity. And Ashevillians learn it from one another.
The beginning for solving Roanoke's tourist situation was written on the wall for you by some very wise citizens of the valley. However, you allowed a handful of people to tear down the lesson that all citizens needed to know. The diversity-enriches issue and how we handle it is our first test of whether we have a community worth selling.
* Lesson No. 1: Be proud of cultures in the community other than your own because others' cultures will enrich your lives on a daily basis.
* Lesson No. 2: Use your ethnic diversity as a strength and not as a weakness. It's your diversity that will bring visitors to the valley.
* Lesson No. 3: Teach your children well and break the syndrome of hate because they have a big job ahead of them if they want Roanoke to be better than Asheville.
Asheville has learned its lessons well, and the result is a community at ease with itself. Daily, the community grows because of Jews, blacks, Native Americans, mountain men, gays, straights and all the rest working together for the common cause - which is ``the tourist dollar.''
The issue isn't increased spending. Rather, it's increased knowledge spent on solving an image problem if you want to be a competitor in the Southern tourism market. Image, as they say, is everything.
Mike Silver, formerly of Asheville, is a horticulture consultant who lives in New Castle.
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB