Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 31, 1993 TAG: 9308310098
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
Bob Thomas, who represents the New River Valley HOSTS on the Southwest Virginia Tourism Infrastructure Strategic Planning Study Commission, said that a fast-food restaurant worker in the valley had asked a family of visitors why in the world they would come to that part of Virginia.
The remark points up the need for hospitality training, Thomas told the commission, for people who come in contact with the public at restaurants, stores and elsewhere. "We have a major internal marketing problem," he said. "We have to stop that kind of negativism about promoting our own area. . . . That's our major issue. We have an educational problem, but I think we can solve it, working together."
The commission was created by the 1993 General Assembly to study tourism infrastructure needs, expanding existing tourism activities, ways to develop new attractions, incentives for regional partnerships and consideration of a fully staffed regional tourism marketing organization.
It held its first meeting Friday at Barter Theater, on the stage in front of the New Guinea jungle set of the current play, "Kuru." "This is probably the most exotic setting you'll have," Richard Rose, the Barter's artistic director, told the commission.
An outline for that plan will be presented at the commission's next meeting, to be set in October aboard the Pioneer Maid cruise ship at Claytor Lake.
Ranger James Kelly of Hungry Mother State Park said that the parks that are supposed to benefit by passage of the $95 million parks bond issue last November, like Hungry Mother and Claytor Lake, may face another problem.
Because of cutbacks in state funds each year, he said, state parks now get 30 percent to 35 percent less funding than in 1989. That could mean problems in having enough of a staff on hand to use the improvements when they are built, he said.
"Unless we get more funding, some of these facilities may be ready but we may not be able to open them," Kelly said.
Virginia's Southwest Blue Ridge Highlands, a regional tourism promotion group composed of volunteers, was suggested as a possible vehicle for the tourism marketing organization the commission is supposed to consider.
Kitty Ward, president of the six-year-old group, said it has needed a full-time executive director.
The group covers localities from the New River Valley Planning District to the western tip of Virginia. Thomas said it is not a duplication of what HOSTS is doing.
HOSTS works to bring visitors to attractions, beds and breakfasts, parks and other facilities in the New River Valley, Thomas said, but still needs to work with Blue Ridge Highlands "because we've got to get them into Southwest Virginia first."
by CNB