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Show The TOWN DOCTOR (The Doctor of Towns) Says KNOW THE VALVE OF YOUR TOURIST TRAFFIC. There lias been a great deal written and said about the value of automobile auto-mobile tourists . Not all of it has been correct, since much of it has been more or less guess work and the personal opinions of groups promoting highway high-way routes and trails and publishers of books in which advertising is the main issue. In. many cases the data given out is somewhat out of line, but be that as it may, the truth is nearer their figure than the realization on the part of most towns of what the actual value really is. A check of automobile tourist traffic in practically every corner of the country shows an average of three and one-half persons per car; the average daily expenditure for not less than ten day trips to be over $17.00 an average of 250 miles daily, covering seventeen cities and towns: and that less than 20 per cent of the traffic are "Tin Can Tourists" those who live in camps end travel in what might be termed second class. Average expenditures will show: Gasoline allowing 250 miles, 15 miles to gallon 16c $2.75 Oil average of 3 pints per day 30c a quart 45 Automobile incidentals including storage 50 Meals, bkf. 50c, lunch 50c, dinner $1.00 7.00 Lodging average of $1.50 per person 5.25 Incidentals 1.75 TOTAL $17.70 This does not allow for unforseen expenses, bub does include possible tire and mechanical upkeep, tips, a soda or sandwitch now and' then, and the usual "Having a Swell Time" to the folks back homo. On this basis, the potential cash value of each tourist car (a car more than 100 miles away from its home garage) is $1.04 to each of the towns through which it passes. There are few towns of 40,000 population, and many with less, that do not now have an average traffic of 25,000 cars per week (3572 per day or 223 per hour for 1G hours a day less than two cars each way per minute) and motor traffic will increase yearly. Twenty-five thousand tourist cars enroute spend $442,000.00 in seventeen towns per week, or $26,000.00 per town. A business Souse with an, annual business equal to this would be something- to talk about. Every town has a chance at this business. It may not be $3,714 per day but one-fifth that much is something to go after. The live business organization knows the amount of traffic that passes through the town the same as any live merchant knows the number of people that pass his store. No town or business can tell if they are getting their share of business to be had1 if they do not know this. The cash value of tourist or motor traffic is great enough to warrant concerted action and expenditure of goodly sums to get it, but there is more: twenty per cent of the out-of-state motor traffic is in the market for, or can be sold, a new location. Good roads have widened the farmers' range of marketing mar-keting at a profit and have broadened opportunities for the employment of labor, but too few towns and cities have capitalized on it. Copyright, 1929, A. D. Stone. Reproduction prohibited in whole er in part. |