Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Broadband and Nature Trails

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Tourism should play an important role in a balanced approach to economic development in Southwest Virginia. So argues James C. Thompson, chairman of the Thompson & Litton engineering firm, in a column published in the Galax Gazette in response to an earlier column by Jerry Fuhrman (See “Selling Bottles of Water and Granola Bars“).

The average visitor to Southwest Virginia spends $157 per day and stays nearly three days, Thompson contends. He cites the town of Damascus as the “poster child” for the benefits of a tourism-driven strategy. “The Virginia Creeper Trail, with an annual usage in excess of 200,000 and proximity to the Appalachian Trail, has literally transformed the town, lining the main street with locally owned, tourism-related businesses.”

Visitors are financially secure and highly mobile, Thompson argues. “They come from across the country, and many have the ability to conduct their business from any location.” If they visit Southwest Virginia, they may fall in love with Southwest Virginia. By developing tourism amenities and broadband infrastructure, Thompson writes, “we have the potential to create brain gain instead of brain drain by attracting such people to the region to stay and establish businesses locally.”

Thompson is taking a big step in the right direction. In effect, he’s arguing for an economic development strategy based on developing, recruiting and retaining human capital. That’s a radical departure from the traditional emphasis in SW Virginia on recruiting manufacturing (although Thompson makes it clear that he supports that, too — he does, after all, run an engineering firm).

I made the very same argument to the Shenandoah Valley Partnership back when it was a newsletter client of mine. If Thompson’s idea makes sense for SW Virginia, it makes even more sense for the Shenandoah Valley, which enjoys a plethora of charming small towns, old houses and homesteads to restore, beautiful landscapes and, most importantly, proximity to metropolitan Washington. I saw a step-by-step process that would unfold organically over years: (a) use the draw of tourism to get outsiders to visit the region, (b) promote the region as a place to buy weekend-getaway or retirement homes, (c) encourage visitors to settle permanently and start new businesses, and (d) build a new entrepreneurially based economy.

The SVP didn’t bite on my idea, preferring to maintain its focus on industrial recruitment. But it looks like the scenario I described is unfolding all on its own. Whether the idea can work in SW Virginia, far from a thriving metropolis like Washington, is an open question. But the region’s leadership is wise to explore that option.

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8 responses to “Broadband and Nature Trails”

  1. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    What if you could come down from DC/Baltimore by rail, rent your hybrid rental car and hike/bike your heart out? Isn’t there a significant market for that?

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    You’d be surprised at the number of people who came to SW VA to attend VT, loved the area, and stayed. Most of them are very “under-employed”. If companies that can do business from nearly anywhere would only take a hard look, they’d find a lot of highly skilled people down here already.

    Had lunch at a local restaurant near the VT campus a few months back and it was so crowded that we had to eat at a table in the bar. The bartender was our waiter. He has a degree in accounting. Naturally why he was tending bar instead of accounts came up. The answer, in a nutshell, was that he couldn’t find a job in accounting here and now had 2 young children, whom he preferred to raise down here than up in NoVA.

    We see a lot of this down here.

    D Flinchum

  3. Jim Patrick Avatar
    Jim Patrick

    A step-by-step process has unfolded organically over years:
    (a) the draw of tourism got outsiders to visit the region, (b) the region obviously is a place to buy weekend-getaway or retirement homes, (c) low tax and property values encouraged visitors to settle permanently (d) where they stridently oppose any change whatsoever from when they arrived. Thanks a lot Jim! [jest]

    “Door slammers” No offense, but your theory is ..uhh Well it’s right in some ways and wrong in others. It is too generic. Outsiders are a diverse group.

    For the path you advocate to happen, certain kinds of people must be the bulk of the tourism. The trick is encouraging potential and budding —or existing— entrepreneurs, while offering less to those who seek an unchanging environment.

  4. Jerry Fuhrman Avatar
    Jerry Fuhrman

    I hadn’t seen the Thompson letter so I’ll not address it. I will invite your readers to peruse this:

    http://blogfromonhigh.blogspot.com/2006/06/on-tourism-firsthand-report.html

    I was on the Virginia Creeper Trail on what should have been – arguably – the busiest holiday weekend of the year. It was nearly abandoned. Politicians – and their hangers-on – claim 200,000 visitors a year. I and local merchants scoff at the number.

    I’d also like to refer your readers to my Roanoke Times article (http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/80513) in which I provide statistics – not happy talk – about conditions in Southwest Virginia.

    Your quote from state tourism director Pat McMahon is spot-on. Studying the demographics, one finds that the meager tourism trade is made up of young, cash-strapped close-to-the-earth tent-dwellers who spend no money here. They haul in their bikes and hiking boots and sleep under the stars. Perhaps McDonald’s has benefitted but there is no discernable economic growth coming out of this multi-million dollar effort.

    And I encourage people to visit Damascus. It is not transformed (and they could use some of your tourism dollars our politicians promised long ago).

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Interesting discussion.

    I live in the Shenandoah Valley and read all the time about how preserving Civil War Battlefields as well as other historical sites is generating $XX millions for our local economy, etc.

    To make a long story short, I am sure that preserving the battlefields and other historical sites does generate some tourist revenue but it’s no where near what the proponents claim it is. There are a few skirmishes a year that bring in a few thousand people and if you do the math the numbers just don’t add up.

    Also, there are plenty of Bed and Breakfast operations set in “small towns, old houses and homesteads” throughout The Valley that do quite well. On the other hand, there are a lot that come and go because IMO the market is saturated with them. Go to a local bank and make your pitch for a B&B…..it’s a risky proposition to say the least.

    IMO tourism is way overplayed in what it can do for a local economy. Most of the museums that bring in all of this tourist money are heavily subsidized by the government at both the state and federal level. So, it’s another case of robbing Peter to pay Paul if you ask me.

    There are countless examples of entities like the SVP trying to bring in industry only to be beat back by the “preservationists” who claim that a certain industry will cause the land/region to lose its “historical significance”. The “preservationists” usually win.

    IMO, there certainly are folks that benefit from a “tourist based” economy….it’s just not a majority of a local population. In fact, it’s usually a small, well connected group who has the resources to hire lawyers and lobby the govn’t in order to get the tax breaks and subsidies that are required to make “historical sites” profitable.

  6. Waldo Jaquith Avatar
    Waldo Jaquith

    I know Damascus better than I know any other town in Southside or SWVA. That’s because I’m one of those tourists that go there to hike and bike and stay a few days. I’ve visited a half dozen times in the past decade, and I imagine I’ll go once a year for the foreseeable future.

    Every time I go it’s bustling. Last time I was there, in May, I arrived the day before Trail Days began. Yet people were whizzing by me on the Creeper Trail every few minutes, often large packs of kids. Many of them had t-shirts on identify the scout troop they were with — large groups from Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee passed me over the course of a few minutes.

    It’s been enjoyable to watch the transformation of the town over time. When I visited in May it was the first time I’d been for at least four years, if memory serves. The riverfront was transformed — there’s an enormous new rivermill themed restaurant that’s got to be the biggest building in town. There’s a new hostel on what was an empty lot. There are two new restaurants, though I’m happy to see that Dot’s hasn’t changed. There’s a huge new outdoor recreation supply store across from Dot’s, selling bikes and climbing equipment and the like, and that’s in addition to MRO, that’s been in town for years. And a big bike-rental shop that I’m pretty sure wasn’t there last time I visited. I met three separate former thru-hikers who now live in Damascus, as home owners, because they fell in love with the town while hiking through.

    Damascus is a town that is economically premised on recreation tourists. I’m one of those recreation tourists. It certainly appears to have been successful, by all outwards signs. I can’t claim knowledge of whether this is recipe for success for the rest of SWVA. But I can say from firsthand experience that Damascus appears to be doing very well thanks to tourists like me.

  7. Jerry Fuhrman Avatar
    Jerry Fuhrman

    You can take it from Waldo or you can talk to folks in the area outside of the bike shop and the mill/restaurant. Tell you what – drive Rte 58 from that restaurant to Abingdon – about 13 miles. Count the number of additional restaurants. The number is zero. Motels? One and its abandoned. I don’t think there’s even a gas station. Plenty of campsites though.

    By the way, the 200,000 visitor figure was lifted from our congressman’s re-election website. Not exactly a reliable source. My guess is, if you add the number of kiddies who are bused in, the number of visitors to the Creeper trail is more like 20,000 per year. Don’t forget the narrow seasonal window that exists. I can provide some email buddies you can communicate with if you’re interested, including a husband and wife who moved to nearby Independence from Charlotte and sank a good deal of money in a business targeting tourists there. They are quite disappointed – on a number of levels. They contacted me specifically because of my comment about tourists coming down and, if we’re lucky, they buy a bottled water at the gas station before they disappear on the trail. They told me how true that is.

    The 3/4 of a million that went into the restoration of a trestle on the trail – if that had been tax breaks to area businesses, we might have growth in the area. As it stands, the county is struggling – except when Waldo shows up.

  8. Waldo Jaquith Avatar
    Waldo Jaquith

    Jerry, I think what you’re saying is that nobody other than Damascus has benefited from improvements made in Damascus. If that’s so, I can’t see that conflict between your statement and mine. I don’t claim any knowledge of any

    I’ll leave you with this photo of a sign that I took during Trail Days. I snapped it on the far side of Abingdon, fully twenty minutes away from Damascus.

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