DATE: Wednesday, November 12, 1997          TAG: 9711120001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

SOURCE: GLENN ALLEN SCOTT

                                            LENGTH:   91 lines

TESTED IN 1994, THE VIRGINIA WATERFRONT IS LURING VISITORS

Disney World's Magic Kingdom transformed Orlando, Fla., into a world-famous travel destination.

Hampton Roads does not have Disney World. But the region contains substantial recreational, entertainment, historical, cultural, lodging and dining assets with which to attract ever-increasing numbers of vacationers and other travelers.

Tourism contributed $2 billion to the Hampton Roads economy in 1993. The Virginia Tourism Corporation, established by Gov. George F. Allen, projects a $2.5 billion impact in 1997.

That impact was a five-years-out objective of the Virginia Waterfront promotion, which is underwritten by Norfolk and the Virginia Tourism Corporation. (The latter invested $2.5 million in the campaign over three years). If the projection is correct, the campaign will attain its objective in four years.

The region stretches from Colonial Williamsburg, Busch Gardens' Old Country/Water Country USA and Jamestown and Yorktown to the Virginia Beach resort strip and Virginia Marine Science Museum.

In between are super attack-aircraft carriers at Norfolk Naval Station, which is freely accessible to the public. And fishing in the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay. And the Children's Museum of Virginia in Portsmouth. And The Chrysler Museum of Art, Virginia Zoo, Nauticus and Norfolk Botanical Garden in Norfolk. And the Mariners' Museum in Newport News and the Virginia Air and Space Museum in Hampton.

Starting last spring, the annual 18-day Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival blossomed as another regional enticement to tourists. On the sumptuous program were presentations by professional local and imported performing-arts groups, a circus, military bands and headliners Victor Borge and Garrison Keillor. The performances were staged from Williamsburg to the Oceanfront.

But not until Norfolk initiated the Virginia Waterfront promotion in 1994 had anyone pitched all of Hampton Roads' major delights to the tens of millions of Americans living within a day's drive of the region.

Telling people as far north as Long Island and Pittsburgh that Williamsburg and Virginia Beach/ Norfolk are within an hour's drive of each other and offer a spectrum of sights and activities for travelers has turned out to be more profitable than expected.

The campaign emerged from deliberations of the Norfolk Area Marketing Advisory Committee, appointed by Norfolk City Manager James B. Oliver Jr. in 1993. The panel members were from across the region. Their mission was to explore ways to expand travel and tourism to offset shrinking defense spending.

Research revealed that people in other states were unaware that Williamsburg, Virginia Beach and Norfolk - each well-known in its own right - were near one another. The Virginia Waterfront campaign spreads the word that they are and that they provide a spectrum of vacation choices.

A test of the campaign in 1994 stimulated 50,000 telephoned requests for the Virginia Waterfront brochure.

Requests totaling more than 118,000 were made in 1995 - appreciably more than the hoped-for 100,000. And 36.8 percent of the requests led to visits.

Requests in 1996 totaled more than 181,000, 22.1 percent producing visits.

The tourism headcount: Visitors to Hampton Roads numbered nearly 8.4 million in 1994, jumped to nearly 9.5 million in 1995, slipped to 8.8 million-plus in 1996 (when tourism was down nationwide).

What is Norfolk gaining directly from the campaign? Visitors to the city increased from nearly 1.8 million in 1994 to nearly 2 million in 1996. But the economic impact from tourism, which rose to $35 million in 1995 from $24 million in 1994, dipped to $21.5 million in 1996 - a disappointment.

But the Virginia Waterfront is a long-haul exercise in image-making. It is altering perceptions.

Regrettably, Norfolk's neighbors have yet to help finance the campaign.

But this encouraging news: Busch Gardens' Old Country/Water Country USA, Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, the Virginia Marine Science Museum and area hotels are pooling resources to sell a ``Family Fun Package to the Virginia Waterfront.'' The promotion generated 38,000 responses this year and $1.6 million in tourism-linked spending. The Virginia Tourism Corporation, which favors regional promotions, helped fund the venture. Checks from the tourism corporation are an inducement to localities to cooperate.

A little regional cooperation is better than none. But the region would benefit from more of it, and fast.

Meanwhile, this encouraging news: Barker Campbell & Farley, the Virginia Beach-based advertising and public-relations agency that marketed ``Family Fun,'' says that a travel writer who sampled the package reported in the New York Post that he found at the Virginia Waterfront such ``a rich patchwork of historical sites, marine science and aerospace museums, beaches, bike paths, theme parks, rides and entertainment, . . . it made me wonder why I ever went to Orlando.''

Hype, yes. But that writer is among the strangers who have gotten the Virginia Waterfront message. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The

Virginian-Pilot.

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