In many ways the tourism industry gets a bad rap. It’s seen as an industry that generally offers wages that don’t match the costs of housing. It’s seen as an industry that caters not to locals but to outsiders, that creates a quality of life that serves the latter, often at the expense of the former.
On the flip side tourism is in fact an important employer and is a clean industry that has the interests of a pristine environment built into its DNA.
Still, to paraphrase Mitt Romney, many in the working class see it as a taker, not a maker.
Perhaps that image is about to take a shift here, away from taker or maker to: giver.
That’s our take on the recent announcement from the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority that it’s giving grants of nearly $4 million to six local projects.
These grants are not aimed at luring more tourists or catering to the ones already flocking to the area.
They’ll help make the vision of an integrated greenway closer with roughly $1.7 million in grant funding to help pay for a project that includes the Beaucatcher Greenway, the west bank of the French Broad River Greenway and a crosswalk and river access at Amboy Road Park.
They’ll help keep kids outside and exercising with $1.1 million for resurfacing soccer fields at the John B. Lewis complex, which the city of Asheville owns. That award allowed city of Asheville officials to use another $900,000 from the City Improvements Program for work on the fields.
They’ll help an Asheville institution enter its next phase of life. The Asheville Museum of Science, formerly the Colburn Earth Science Museum, received $400,000 for its planned move to an expanded space in downtown’s Wells Fargo building.
Other grants include $313,000 grant for the WNC Nature Center that will enable development of a permanent butterfly exhibit, among other improvements; $150,000 for climate-science center The Collider that will pay for technology enhancements, and $200,000 to the Riverglass Public Glass Studio School for a River Arts District project that will include classes, demonstrations, exhibitions and glass artist studio space.
Down the road just a bit Stephanie Pace Brown, executive director of the Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau, said Tourism Development Authority board members will vote in February to approve awarding $700,000 for the French Broad River Greenway.
Tourism grant money comes from a portion of the room tax revenues paid by overnight visitors in Buncombe County lodging accommodations. Since the grant program’s inception in 2001, the TDA has awarded more than $23 million to worthy projects.
Yes, it’s important to the economy to continue to tout this area’s wonders and to lure visitors here. When thinking of those wonders breathtaking architecture or soaring peaks may come to mind, but the wonder that has truly been WNC’s bread and butter is its people – open and friendly.
It’s good to see those people being taken care of.
These grants will do their part to continue to make this a great place to live in addition to being a destination to visit.
It’s a wise use of those of revenues, one that we hope to see continue.
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