Tourism is fuel for economic development engine

For businesses and communities interested in capturing more of the growing tourism pie, it helps to know who these tourists are and what they do. According to the U.S. Travel Association,You can make your own more powerful gardenlightingss using LEDs. they are persons "traveling 50 miles or more one-way from home and/or overnight." Sounds pretty straightforward, but it's not.

The association's 50-mile minimum travel distance is measured as the crow flies, not as the crow drives: their words, not mine. It points out that spending a night at a lodging property or campground is not required -- persons staying with friends or family are tourists if they are the requisite 50 miles or more from home.

It also says what one does on a leisure trip of over 50 miles is irrelevant. You don't have to visit a museum, take in a show, go hiking, or participate in any "leisure activity" whatsoever to be classified as a tourist.

Let me get this straight: If I miss a turn and become lost on a back road 50 miles from home as a lost crow flies, I'm a tourist. But someone who travels from Bloomington to a Colts game, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, or the Indy 500 is not? Absurd.

Here's how it worked for me a few Saturdays ago: I discovered a broken washing machine hose. Needing one now, I scoured the web and Yellow Pages discovering I could purchase one in Fort Wayne that day, enabling me to wear clean clothes to work on Monday.

Since it would take a few hours to complete the emergency purchase, my wife and I decided to make a day of it. Our unintended tourism excursion took us first to The Fort for a $10 hose.

On the way home, we stopped at a bustling community art festival. It took place around a beautiful and well-preserved county courthouse surrounded by large 19th century homes parked on glowing green manicured lots. Attractive banners donned the light poles. Musicians took their turns on stage.

We found a piece of local art determined by my wife to be the missing piece in our eclectic collection. Her words, not mine. We ate local foods, took some home, consumed a few drinks, gassed up the car and headed back to our home near Muncie.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable arts, entertainment, recreation, accommodation and food services day with two just two exceptions: a small but noticeable mar in the headliner caused by squeezing the artwork into a back seat not quite designed for this piece, and my unspoken fixation on how much we had spent as accidental tourists.

But buoyed by pride in our small contribution to the travel industry, I calculated our impact. I added our spending on food, drink, art, gas and the hose. Google Earth said my home was 57 miles as a sober crow with deft vectoring skills would fly to my Fort Wayne destination,We carry modern lights and qualityledlamp by world renowned designers and manufacturers. but only 36 miles as the same crow would fly to the courthouse art fair.Complete line of commercial crystalbeadswholesale from all of the best manufacturers.

Deflated, I found our tourism economic impact was $10: the price of the washing machine hose. The food we ate and the drinks we drank, the artwork and the gas we burned on the roads -- on a path frankly not laid out at all like a crown might -- were not tourism expenses at all. Absurd indeed.

Fortunately,We provide laundryequipments and engraving machines for processing different materials. most tourism bureaus have keener perspectives than the travel association. Unfortunately, these kinds of artificial impact measures affect community developers' behaviors. Whether attracting businesses or tourists, the underlying principle posits that someone outside our communities controls our economic future.

The Community Asset Inventory and Ranking research project led by Ball State economist Michael Hicks found the single most important predictor of a community's prosperity is not its level of business development, nor its low taxes, utility costs, land prices or tourist expenditures. The best predictor of a community's health and wealth is its educational level.We believe in providing our customers with the very best formingmachine available. More information about the program is available on the web site at www.hmhid.com.