THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 25, 1996 TAG: 9604250438
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
Tourism can be a dangerous business. Just ask the trooper who tried to keep up with the first lady of Virginia during her latest jaunt.
While accompanying Susan Allen, Gov. George F. Allen's wife, on a bicycle ride to promote ecological tourism in Virginia recently, a state trooper fell off her bike.
She lost a tooth.
On another bike ride with Susan Allen, Tennessee first lady Martha Sundquist fell off her bike too.
``I challenge anyone else to try to keep up with me,'' Allen said Wednesday while promoting her third bike ride on the Eastern Shore, scheduled this weekend in honor of Virginia Heritage Tourism Weeks.
Allen was the guest speaker at the Hampton Roads Festival and Events Association annual meeting at the Holiday Inn Executive Center in Virginia Beach. In her statewide effort to recognize the state's tourism industry, she spoke to special-event planners, including representatives of Hampton Bay Days, Portsmouth Parks and Recreation, and the Virginia Beach Neptune Festival.
She commended the group for establishing Hampton Roads' reputation as a tourist magnet.
``You are the hot spot in Virginia for festivals,'' she said.
Allen also recognized the region's growing cooperation, citing regional marketing as the most effective tourism tool available to Virginia's cities. She praised Hampton Roads for doing what the rest of the state only recently has learned.
``Technically, all these people are in competition with each other and yet they want to share information,'' she said. ``It's a very important part of economic development. Along with these businesses (that are coming to Virginia), we will see more tourism. It fits hand and glove with economic development.''
On her upcoming trade mission to the Pacific Rim, Allen plans to meet with tour operators and tourism-related businesses while her husband talks to representatives of expanding companies.
``I really think the regional approach has been very important domestically as well as internationally,'' she said. by CNB