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Many individual tourism-related businesses and attractions fail because they begin at the wrong scale. While finding a local entrepreneur often is an essential piece to building and tourism and economic development program you want, make sure that local person is supported in the same ways that I hope you support all local entrepreneurs. In particular, they need to do market research and be sharp and realistic about expectations. Read the rest of this entry »

Now, more than in previous decades, people respond well to quality and taste. The trip is about the experience. People with more money to spend in your town are particularly apt to be sensitive to incongruous elements that seem to ruin the atmosphere.

The most appealing towns and cities demonstrate that not every single building and business must contribute to the ambiance, and that a place can still be a magnetic destination even with a few mistakes thrown in. But try to avoid mistakes all the time, and thus to minimize the number of mistakes actually made. Read the rest of this entry »

Then you need a technique for converting one tourist attraction, which most locations already have, or can uncover or create, into more than one attraction. If you have one of something, attempt first to develop more attractions that people with similar interests would enjoy.

Sometimes in smaller communities the additional attractions need to take the form of organizing a tour or joint promotion that extends over several nearby towns. In one area where I worked, about eight wineries in four or five towns over a 30 or 40 mile area combined marketing efforts with considerable success. You may have seen antique stores combine to help antiquers hop from one town to the next, to the benefit of all. Read the rest of this entry »

Tourism and economic development are good partners by the very definition of economic development we use–a new activity that generates income from outside sources for your community.

To have at least a partial connection between tourism and economic development, you’ll need:

• At least one tourist attraction, which we define as something someone outside your community would want to see or do. Read the rest of this entry »