overnight rental units at Big Meadows, in Shenandoah National Park
| Any ol' place can have a rollercoaster or a waterslide. If you want people to drive to your area and spend money, it helps to have something extra, something special, something unique. In Virginia, communities that encourage tourism have discovered two strong "draws" - Virginia's natural beauty and Virginia's extensive history. |
Tourists support local stores and provide tax revenue with every purchase, while demanding a minimum of services and creating little water or air pollution. In particular, tourists do not send children to the local schools. In rural Virginia, a majority of the county tax levy may be dedicated to paying teachers, repairing schools and running the school bus system. If visitors pay a lot of taxes, then elected officials can set a low property tax rate for local residents while providing a high level of services.
As Americans have become richer, tourism has become a major growth industry. Nearly all levels of government are encouraging tourism. It is a "green" industry that more than pays its way economically, and politicians are proud to obtain Federal or state funding for local projects.
Politicians compete for units of the Smithsonian Institution to build in their state/Congressional District, just as they compete for military bases. Virginia nearly lost out to an attempt to have the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum expand in Colorado, rather than become the Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport.
Prince William County wanted a fisheries-related unit of the Smithsonian Institution to locate near a convention center planned at Belmont. The county ended up planning the Belmont Bay Life Science Center with the Science Museum of Virginia as the academic/science partner for what the county envisioned as a tourist magnet, predicting 750,000 visitors annually. The Washington Post headline, announcing the first $400,000 in state funding, included "Tourists Seen Flocking to Science Center."1
Plans for tourist-based projects constantly evolve to match funding opportunities/challenges. Virginia voters approved $5 million for construction of the Belmont Bay Life Science Center in the General Obligation Bond referendum in 2002, but that was less than 10% of projected costs. In 2009, the Science Museum of Virginia transferred responsibility for the Belmont Bay Life Science Center to George Mason University (which renamed it the "Potomac Science Center"), and cancelled plans for similar science centers in Bristol and Harrisonburg, because the museum was unable to raise enough funding.2 State officials considered using one-time federal "stimulus" funds for the Belmont Bay Life Science Center in 2009, but ultimately transferred that money to support sheriff's offices.3
Plans for a national slavery museum in Fredericksburg collapsed when the organization declared bankruptcy in 2011. Explore Park, on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Roanoke, provided excellent historical interpretation for several years but never attracted enough visitors to cover costs, and living history portion of that facility was closed in 2007.4
Why would communities seeking tourists highlight museums in their advertising? Perhaps they know that more people visit museums each year than attend a professional sports event.5
Tourism does have negative impacts, and occasionally there is a backlash against tourism. Virginia Beach police confronted black college students at the Greekfest festival in 1989, risking a boycott after local residents complained that vacation behavior had gotten out of hand.6 Northern Fauquier residents feared commercial sprawl would overwhelm their county when Disney America was proposed near Haymarket in adjacent Prince William County. The Fauquier county supervisors have also struggled to control noise affecting residents adjacent to wineries, which have expanded into event centers into hosting weddings and large groups.7
The benefits outweigh the costs in most circumstances. Virginia competes intensely with other states, and communities within Virginia compete with each other, to attract money-spending tourists - just as communities compete to attract businesses to locate in their area. Competition between jurisdictions can handicap efforts to draw people to a region, such as the Roanoke Valley or Hampton Roads, since states, counties, and cities are reluctant to share the rewards (tax revenues) that come with success.
Mother Nature ignores the political boundaries separating the states, or the counties and cities within Virginia. The Chambers of Commerce are far more conscious of those boundaries, however. Advertising intended to draw tourists to the Outer Banks of North Carolina rarely mentions the charms of Virginia Beach - and don't hold your breath waiting for the Virginians to encourage visitation to sites in North Carolina either. Collection and distribution of tax revenues are based on political geography, so tourism advertising often reflects political rather than ecological boundaries.
The National Football League, Major League Baseball, and other professional leagues share some revenues among all the teams, because they know that no single team can thrive independent from the league. Virginia localities occasionally demonstrate team spirit and finance joint advertising campaigns, but the sales taxes, meals taxes, and lodging taxes paid by tourists are rarely shared with other jurisdictions in a region. In many Virginia communities, there are even rival Chambers of Commerce for different parts of a county, or a city may have a separate Chamber that cooperates only occasionally with the equivalent organization in the county.
Occasionally, however, you can find some cross-border initiatives. The Charles Kuralt Trail links national wildlife refuges (and one fish hatchery) in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Kuralt hosted a series of "On the Road" and "Sunday Morning" broadcasts for CBS News, highlighting the beauty of America's natural places, as well as unusual people and locations across the country.
Kuralt was a native of North Carolina - but thought in broader terms than "state" or "taxing district." The sites on the trail are all within the Roanoke-Tar-Neuse-Cape Fear ecosystem, draining into Albemarle Sound. Great Dismal Swamp and Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge are connected with 10 North Carolina sites. If you want to drive to Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is mostly in North Carolina, only one road from Virginia provides access.
If only the coastal birding trails for adjacent states would cross-advertise together... The birds migrate along the Atlantic flyway in a seasonal pattern that ignores state boundaries.
Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina could advertise when springtime migrants have left for northern breeding grounds, funneling birders sequentially to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey sites. In the fall, the northern states could return the favor. That would require a regional, flyway-based perspective, rather than one based on political jurisdictions or taxing districts interested in the economic benefits from tourism. It could be done, as demonstrated by Journey North's Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project.
