overnight rental units at Big Meadows, in Shenandoah National Park
| Any ol' place can have a rollercoaster or a waterslide. If you want people to drive to your area and spend money, it helps to have something extra, something special, something unique. In Virginia, communities that encourage tourism have discovered two strong "draws" - Virginia's natural beauty and Virginia's extensive history. |
Tourists support local stores and provide tax revenue with every purchase, while demanding a minimum of services and creating little water or air pollution. In particular, they do not send children to the local schools. In rural Virginia, a majority of the county tax levy may be dedicated to paying teachers, repairing schools, and running the school bus system. If visitors pay a lot of taxes, then elected officials can set a low property tax rate for local residents while providing a high level of services.
As Americans have become richer, tourism has become a major growth industry. Nearly all levels of government are encouraging tourism. It is a "green" industry that more than pays its way economically, and politicians are proud to obtain Federal or state funding for local projects.
Politicians compete for units of the Smithsonian Institution to build in their state/Congressional District, just as they compete for military bases. Virginia nearly lost out to a Colorado attempt to have the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum expand in Colorado, rather than at Dulles International Airport. Prince William County wanted a fisheries-related unit of the Smithsonian Institution to locate near a convention center planned at Belmont, and ended up attracting the Belmont Bay Life Science Center from the Science Museum of Virginia.
Tourism does have negative impacts, and occasionally there is a backlash against tourism. Virginia Beach police confronted black college students, risking a boycott after local residents complained that vacation behavior had gotten out of hand. Northern Fauquier residents feared commercial sprawl would overwhelm their county when Disney America was proposed near Haymarket in adjacent Prince William County. The Fauquier county supervisors have also struggled to control noise affecting residents adjacent to wineries trying to expand into hosting group parties and serving meals to tourists.
The benefits outweigh the costs in most circumstances. Virginia competes intensely with other states, and communities within Virginia compete with each other, to attract money-spending tourists - just as communities compete to attract businesses to locate in their area. Competition between jurisdictions can handicap efforts to draw people to a region, such as the Roanoke Valley or Hampton Roads, since states, counties, and cities are reluctant to share the rewards (tax revenues) that come with success.
Mother Nature ignores the political boundaries separating the states, or the counties and cities within Virginia. The Chambers of Commerce are far more conscious of those boundaries, however. Advertising intended to draw tourists to the Outer Banks of North Carolina rarely mentions the charms of Virginia Beach - and don't hold your breath waiting for the Virginians to encourage visitation to sites in North Carolina either. Collection and distribution of tax revenues are based on political geography, so tourism advertising often reflects political rather than ecological boundaries.
The National Football League, Major League Baseball, and other professional leagues share some revenues among all the teams, because they know that no single team can thrive independent from the league. Virginia localities occasionally demonstrate team spirit and finance joint advertising campaigns, but the sales taxes, meals taxes, and lodging taxes paid by tourists are rarely shared with other jurisdictions in a region. In many Virginia communities, there are even rival Chambers of Commerce for different parts of a county, or a city may have a separate Chamber that cooperates only occasionally with the equivalent organization in the county.
Occasionally, however, you can find some cross-border initiatives. The Charles Kuralt Trail links national wildlife refuges (and one fish hatchery) in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Kuralt hosted a series of "On the Road" and "Sunday Morning" broadcasts for CBS News, highlighting the beauty of America's natural places, as well as unusual people and locations across the country.
Kuralt was a native of North Carolina - but thought in broader terms than "state" or "taxing district." The sites on the trail are all within the Roanoke-Tar-Neuse-Cape Fear ecosystem, draining into Albemarle Sound. Great Dismal Swamp and Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge are connected with 10 North Carolina sites. If you want to drive to Mackay Island refuge, plan on taking the one road from Virginia anyway.
