Sorry to see tourists go
If you're glad those blasted tourists have finally dried up and blown away like pesky leaves, maybe you should hold off the celebration.
Granted, this pro-tourism opinion piece is written by a guy who works for a company that brings in millions of dollars every year through travelers to our gorgeous corner of the Earth. The Coeur d'Alene Resort, Best Western Plus Coeur d'Alene Inn, Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course, the Hagadone Event Center and a bunch of good restaurants all do nicely in luring visitors and their money to North Idaho, and all of them are part of The Hagadone Corp., which also owns this newspaper.
Biased? Certainly, but this pro-tourism perspective is also based on research and plenty of personal experience. Tourism is an economic and social plus, and here are just a few of the reasons why.
* The travel industry provides more good jobs than you might realize. More than half (53 percent) of all employees in the travel industry, which includes hotels, motels, restaurants, convention centers and more, earn a middle-class salary or higher. That's more than the finance, insurance and real estate industries.
* One-third of the 5.6 million Americans who work part time support themselves while they work in the largest component of the travel industry - leisure and hospitality. That includes many hundreds of local high school and college students.
* According to the latest research available, visitors to Idaho annually spend almost $4 billion here and generate more than $500 million for federal, state and local governments. Not only are they directly providing local jobs, but they're helping pay for our teachers, our police and firefighters.
We're the first to agree that tourism alone does not a strong economy make. But it's a heck of a weapon in any economic development arsenal.
In your travels or talking with friends and family, observe communities that have little or no tourism. You'll discover that they're working very, very hard to get even a tiny slice of what we've got. Why do you think that is?
One of the reasons we're most bullish on tourism is that the enthusiasm generated for our region is infectious. It's confirmation from a multitude of sources that what we experience on a daily basis comprises snapshots that visitors will cherish for the rest of their lives. There's a sense of deep community pride when you live, by choice, in a place so many others wish they could call "home."
Why horde these riches? It's better to share Mother Nature's benevolence.