Tourism

Tourism

Several observations concerning tourism seem appropriate as we near the end our 1970’s comments. Tourism and chambers of commerce have been linked since at least the beginning of the twentieth century. Tourism is the most prevalent of all economic development strategies pursued by chambers, even to this day. As stated repeatedly tourism-related EDOs are the most common specialized EDO in existence today–and probably for the entire history of American economic development. Certainly geographies with interesting natural phenomena, Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls, and large suppose ably cosmopolitan cities such as New York, Chicago, and Honolulu  as examples will employ tourism a primary economic development strategy–but frankly there are very few communities of any size or location who lack a tourism initiative and a destination. In terms of our past comments, we have seen how the rise of the New South, i.e. Orlando and Disney World and it would seem that in Western states tourism is a natural. But, it is the facilities associated with urban tourism that we see the most evidence of the overlap of tourism and more mainstream economic development strategies–such as urban renewal-redevelopment.