THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 16, 1996 TAG: 9606150138
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 64 lines
THE OCEANFRONT ARE CITED.
The way veteran resort hotelier Bruce Thompson sees it, resort planners need to seriously rethink some ideas about shoring up the city's tourism industry.
Thompson, a guest speaker at a Thursday meeting of the Resort Area Advisory Commission, criticized the direction being taken in developing tourism at the Oceanfront. He specifically cited: :
The commercialization of the Boardwalk. Thompson, a former member of the advisory commission, said retail operations and once-forbidden signs are creeping back onto the three-mile-long walkway, which has undergone extensive beautification work and was designed to be a welcoming and scenic Oceanfront pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Plans to erect a 400- to 500-room convention hotel away from the Oceanfront. While a larger convention hall than the existing Pavilion Convention Center is needed for major gatherings, a hotel should be located on the shoreline not inland, Thompson said. The shoreline makes the Beach a distinctive destination., he argued. Conventioneers who want land-bound accommodations would just as readily choose Houston or San Antonio for a convention site.
Plans for commercial and restaurant development on the Dome property at 19th Street and Pacific Avenue. The city needs to land-bank the property - roughly 8 acres in the heart of the resort district - until a suitable long-range development plan can be found for it. More restaurants and shops won't bring more people to the Oceanfront, Thompson argues. It will just dilute the existing customer base.
The inclination of city administrators and City Council members to ``nickel-dime'' the TGIF (Tourism Growth Investment Fund) pool by siphoning money off for any little Oceanfront-related project that comes along. Thompson cited as an example the ``Holiday Lights'' program initiated last winter on the Boardwalk, which took $750,000 from TGIF. The fund is a revenue pool fed by taxes on motel and restaurant sales, amusements fees and resort franchise fees. It was adopted by the City Council in 1991 to fund major resort improvement projects such as the Virginia Marine Science Museum expansion and the new amphitheater.
Spending nearly $1 million a year on Oceanfront entertainment programs that don't translate into more business for resort hotels and restaurants. While the entertainment is often great, it isn't bringing more tourist dollars to the Beach, which the programs were supposed to do, Thompson insisted.
Stinting on Oceanfront maintenance. While spending millions in the past 10 years to dress up the resort strip, the city is spending little or nothing for its upkeep. For instance, Thompson said, mounds of chewing gum are accumulating on recently paved sidewalks, and trash and debris is piling up on resort streets and landscaped borders. The city is letting the improved areas creep back into unsightly disrepair.
City bureaucracy. There's no ``go-to body'' or central clearinghouse for businessmen and women to funnel plans and projects through. Instead, Thompson said, anyone with development plans - no matter how small - are shunted relentlessly through an endless maze of city offices and reviewing agencies. The process kills initiative, Thompson said, and will drive away potential investors in a city that claims to be fervently seeking outsider business investments.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH TOURISM by CNB