Boosting tourism with a plan and a smile
Town Council receives county tourism report
In an effort to increase tourism, the Rappahannock County tourism committee hopes the county will take advantage of the 400,000 people that go through nearby Shenandoah National Park, that it will research options for broadband in the county, post signs in businesses advertising wifi spots, create a tourism app for the county and enhance social media savvy by training businesses to use Instagram.
These were some of the ideas presented Monday night (March 14) by Deputy County Administrator Debbie Keyser in a county tourism report to the Washington Town Council at its monthly meeting.
During the meeting town council member Patrick O’Connell, who opened The Inn at Little Washington back in the late 1970s, said how “nice it was to see the tide turning, and tourists being welcomed, and that it doesn’t seem that long ago, where ‘ outsiders’ could stay out, that being the sentiment of a certain segment of the population.” He also talked about the importance of welcoming visitors with a smile and being helpful.
The tourism committee Keyser established pulled together Biz Rapp, the Artisan Trail, Washington Mayor John Sullivan, and a number of persons from the wineries — to plan for the future, and to centralize tourism efforts countywide.
“As you can see we have a multitude of ideas, but we really feel that people are
standing alone. BizzRapp stands alone, and the Artisan Trail stands alone, and each one is doing their own advertising. And what we want to do is work together as a team,” Keyser said. “What we want to do is develop a plan of action for this coming year, and have everybody contribute. We really want one central contact for the county, one person who is a go-to coordinator for tourism activities in the county.”
Rappahannock County contains 18-plus artisan studios, 18 farms and nurseries, 17 lodging options, 17 Civil War markers, two museums, 10 dining options, seven wineries, two breweries, six entertainment locations, four antique shops and one distillery, according to the report. Tourism revenue comes to the county from two sources, retail sales, and meals and lodging tax. Retail sales go to the state, one percent comes back to the county, Keyser said.
Keyser said she is hoping for about $500,000 in revenue next year, from the local sales tax, which would be a 6-percent increase from this year.
“If we have the same growth in five years, that would mean that revenue would increase $158,000. But if we can double that, that would be $316,000, and that’s enough to hire four full time fire and rescue personnel that we need in the county,” Keyser said. “And Rappahannock County is really interesting, because we have 404,000 people that go through Thornton Gap . . . and that’s 404,000 people that are within our reach, and we need to know how to capture that group of tourists.”
Keyser, who will be presenting the report to the Board of Supervisors at its April meeting said, “Our vision is to create and sustain a strong agriculture, artisan, food and beverage, and folklore culture for our county, which supports our pristine environment.
“So it’s not something that we want to see change, we want something that’s conducive to what we have. And we want to improve our economic vitality with annual increases in tourism revenue, hopefully for the next five years, to promote our county and our region through utilization of resources.”
IMPORTANCE OF A SMILE
After Keyser’s presentation and some council discussion about various aspects of county tourism and funding, O’Connell spoke about the importance of the county welcoming visitors. This was after the mayor asked him his thoughts on local tourism.
“It often occurs to me how much could be done with a simple plea to the community, to make a point of being welcoming and warm to visitors,” O’Connell said, noting that Ireland, as a country, years ago established a reputation as being one of the nicest and warmest, friendliest places to visit -- and Americans in particular loved going there because they knew everyone would be so warm and friendly.
France, on the other hand, O’Connell continued, was not known for that — UNTIL they had a financial crisis.
“Prior to that, none of them could seem to speak English,” he said. “Now, universally, every single person on the street throughout the major cities in France, would happily speak to you in English, unless they’re very old, but there would be someone nearby who will. And they tried, consciously, to reverse that and become known for their friendliness. It doesn’t cost anyone anything.
“It’s about giving directions, yielding the right of way, smiling,” O’Connell said. “So we could, by changing the entire culture of our county, consciously, we could have great impact on welcoming tourists. And it would become known, and that effort to do it would get around, at no cost to anyone.
“I think it’s much better than it once was, but in our small organization of 140 (at the Inn), we try to cultivate that culture. And it works. So almost every complimentary letter we get said that every, single, person they met in the organization -- whether it was the gardener or the boy out front -- smiled and was nice, and welcoming to them. And so we see the result within that tiny little microcosm, all the time.”
“It’s about giving directions, yielding the right of way, smiling,” O’Connell said. “So we could, by changing the entire culture of our county, consciously, we could have great impact on welcoming tourists. And it would become known, and that effort to do it would get around, at no cost to anyone.