OCR Text |
Show Wayne County Needs Travel Promotion Push By Barbara Ekker Most areas of Utah no'.ed expenditure increases from the 1971 tourist season over 1970, including a good portion por-tion of southern Utah. However, Wayne County didn't show up in this category, cate-gory, dropping an alarming 11.4 percent of the 1970 cx- pendiiures, according to figures fig-ures from the Utah Travd Council. There ic little question as io wiiy the tourists loss in Wayne County. The openiti of I 70 for 70 miles between Gieen River and Fremont Junction last November hps taken the bulk of the cast-west cast-west traffic formerly usmj U-24 through Wayne Courly. This, in turn, has created a major economic gap for this Erea. showing a drop of mn-resident mn-resident expenditures of $476, 000 in 1970 to $54,80 in 1071. Our county isn't the only area to feel a drastic economic econ-omic change since construction construc-tion of the Interstate system. Changes have been noted all over the country some good and some bad. In the case of our county of Wayne the interstate has practically eliminated eli-minated tourist industry. Wayne had some of the most spectacular and unusual scenery in the world. Unless the traveler, who will now be traveling mainly on interstate inter-state highway, knows about it, he will probably by pais this area. Fighting to get U-24 rebuilt re-built and paved through the county was s long, drawn out process which Wayne rest-dents rest-dents worked for over many years. It seems that the ans-were ans-were to this country's tourist problem is going to have to be another cooperative effort to "sell" the world on coming there by ci oice, rather than by chance. There are several things in the gris; mill which are going go-ing for Wayne. Among them is the imnJnent approval of Capitol Keef National Monument Mon-ument tc the national park status. In he overall view of most tourists, placing Capitol Cap-itol Reef into the same eat-tgory eat-tgory as Bryce and Zion and Grand Canyon would be the greatest incentive to vbit this area. Construction on Utah Iligii-way Iligii-way U-9: from Hanksville to Elanding is also expected to be comi'lcted in the next fr?w years, opening up a completely com-pletely new east-west route from the southeast, and bring additional travel to the Lake Powell areas like Ilite end Bullfrog Basin and on through Wayne County. In the meanlime, an intensified in-tensified cooperative campaign cam-paign to promote Wayne as a tourist destination will be essential es-sential as n first step. Through the efforts of the .Six-County .Six-County Commissions Organization, Organi-zation, Utah Travel Council, businessmen, civic group, If and others such a program Y could well be effective. ' The construciton of inter. CV state highway through t(,t nation is rrogress'me and something which must be met by nearly every area to adjust tourist and traffic M problems and patterns. Meet- 1' ing this problem through a ' V a re-developing program to 'r lure tourists into Wavne ; nisP,r County is one way of meeting . H this problem in this area Jiiing Eventually this type of action "im c will be required. The sooner -errio plan,s get underway, the sron- ' ' er Wayne County will again ' "'ash see the benefits of the tour "" -;H ist dollar. " " V jiJivid |