Fredericksburg has the 'product'; what it needs is salesmanship

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Date published: 10/29/2002

FREDERICKSBURG needs a new approach to tourism and economic development. Our local economic prosperity can be attributed almost entirely to a single retail development, and the otherwise healthy capacity to which our area hotels are filled can be credited to interstate traffic, not tourists. We are "prospering" far beneath our potential.

Tourism and economic development go hand in hand. By employing an effective salesperson who devoted most of his (or her) time to tourism--perhaps in a ratio of 70 percent tourism to 30 percent economic development--we wouldn't have to search for a world-class tourism guru or a regional solution. Fredericksburg simply needs to start advertising in an aggressive and more focused manner.

Fredericksburg remains in a perpetual state of partial revitalization, standing on a whale and fishing for minnows. Our city is home to nothing short of world-class, destination-worthy attractions that should be teeming with tourists and filling our municipal coffers. The idea that Fredericksburg needs anything else to become a destination is ludicrous.

Aggressively promoted, our Civil War attractions alone should draw visitors enough to generate massive income. Our George Washington family attractions and remarkable Colonial history (currently all but ignored) should be generating enough revenue to support any city our size.

By osmosis, tourism is economic development. The biggest and most immediate beneficiaries of an aggressively promoted Fredericksburg would be the counties of Stafford and Spotsylvania. Some of the main "Fredericksburg" attractions are located in these two counties, and if local hotels begin to add real tourism business, they will soon be overrun and sending our visitors all the way to Dale City.

With little undeveloped property within our city limits, and with the Fredericksburg Regional Alliance and the Industrial Development Authority established to fill a major role in economic development, a city director could very well focus on one target. The thousands of associations and smaller government-related offices with higher-paying jobs could be, and ought to be, targeted assiduously for relocation to Fredericksburg.

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Date published: 10/29/2002