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Show Writer Stresses Great Import of Tourist Business The Milford Junior Chamber of Commerce urges the citizens of ' Milford to do all in their power to attract tourists to Milford. The advantage of this will be seen in the following article by George Smithpeter of the Utah State Junior Jun-ior Chamber of Commerce: Utah may boast of its many and sundry industries) and to this .list has been added one that is rapidly-coming rapidly-coming into the foreground. The tourist crop is the most ' thriving and most remunerative crop now-growing. now-growing. As it grows and. prospers, pros-pers, so will other businesses grow and prosper proportionally. Every citizen of the state is interested in its development since he is either directly or indirectly affected. With this in mind, let me present a statistical picture of this industry: indus-try: Last year, it is estimated that Utah had the pleasure of playing host to 1,541 !0O0 oujt-of-state guests. For this service, Utah was paid $31,982,000. The Conoco Travel bureau alone routed 118,566 parties through the Beehive state. With Utah's increasing popularity and the Golden Gate exposition in San Francisco, it is not unreasonable unreason-able to expect an increase of at least 50 percent this year. Believe it or not, the tourist industry in-dustry is the third largest industry indus-try in the United States today. It is exceeded only by agriculture and textiles. In 1938, 45,000,000 of the American people traveled by air, bus, rail and in their 13,000,-000 13,000,-000 cars at an expenditure of $4,-500,000,000. $4,-500,000,000. This is saying that the American public spent $1 out of every $14 of the national income in-come in seeing the world. The average tourist enters seven states and travels a distance of 4000 miles. This means that Utah could be in Mr. Average Tourist's vacation vaca-tion from virtually any point in the United States. In order to get a picture of the possibilities of the tourist industry, indus-try, compare the following with the facts given above. In 1935, Joseph B. Easton, federal coordinator coordi-nator of railways, reported to President Roosevelt: There are 3,-000,000 3,-000,000 miles of highway in the United States to accommodate the 31,000,000 automobile vehicles. There are 31,000,000 families, two-thirds two-thirds of whom own cars. Each of these is a potential patron of the tourist industry for everyone is imbued with the desire to travel. It is interesting to note how the nation travels on its vacation. 947c of the American tourists (Continued on last page) M Tourist Business (Continued from first page) travel in their own cars, 4 'by rail, 1 by bus and y2 by air. Air travel is only in its infancy. As a result of the government's air program, air touring is bound to add its share to the tourist industry in-dustry of tomorrow. The public has become trailer conscious in the past few years, It is estimated that there are 400,-000 400,-000 house trailers owned and operated today, and that there are 350 factories producing more. ' Mr. Average Tourist spends his dollar in the following fashion: 25c for purchases in retail stores, 21c for meals in hotel dining rooms and restaurants, 20c for transportation, 20c for lodging, 8c for amusements and 6c for refreshments re-freshments and confections. Economists list the tourist industry in-dustry as an "Invisible Item of Exports". It has the advantage over other industries in that there is no depletion of resources. Utah is situated in the heart of the great American vacation area and its scenic and recreational advantages advant-ages are largely provided by nature na-ture and cannot be destroyed, altered al-tered or moved. With this information at hand, every Utah citizen should realize the value of this new and thriving industry and give his best efforts in contributing to its success. M |