DRA hosts“First Steps” tourism meeting
Johnson: “The numbers (in tourism) are huge and the opportunities for the Region are great.”
Special to the DBJ

The Office of the Federal Co-chairman of the Delta Regional Authority held its “First Steps” Tourism Meeting Wednesday, which, according to DRA Federal Co-chairman Pete Johnson, was to bring tourism leaders and other interested individuals in the Delta together to begin thinking and setting the priorities needed to address tourism as an economic opportunity for the region.

“Our goal is to develop a marketing and promotional plan for the region, to increase the tour bus business that will come down through the region and to increase leisure tourism,” Johnson told some 54 attendees who came from Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas to attend the meeting in Clarksdale, Miss. “The numbers (in tourism) are huge and the opportunities are great.”

Johnson described the conference as a huge success and worthwhile for attendees, all of whom seemed interested in finding ways to be a part of an effort that he believes will have an economic impact throughout the region.

“Tourism is one of the biggest industries in the United States,” Johnson say. “In Mississippi alone, the industry brought in $1.3 billion in revenue last year. One in every ten dollars that goes to the state’s general fund is from tourism, and one in seven jobs in the state is in tourism. These facts alone help to explain why we are focusing on tourism as an economic opportunity for the entire region.”

Tourism industry leaders making presentations included John Elkington, of Performa Entertainment Real Estate, Inc., Webster Franklin, president and CEO, Tunica Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Beverly Robertson, executive director of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

Branding the Delta’s cultural history by tying together various themes such as blues, rock and soul music and civil rights to persuade tourists to extend their visits to the Delta, are two of the major challenges in the industry, according to Elkington. His company, Performa, was instrumental in developing historic Beale Street in Memphis (Tennessee), an attraction that draws national and international visitors. It grossed more than $40 million in revenue last year and is now the largest tourist attraction in Tennessee.

“We need to bring people to the Delta to show them the products we have,” Elkington says. “We need to look for ways to develop our products and get tourists to stay an additional day in the Delta. Mississippi has a great history that needs to be told, and we need to make that a priority in our branding.”

Franklin described the economic growth Tunica County has experienced over the past 10 years, which includes the creation of 16,000 jobs with benefit packages. The town’s nine casinos are expected to generate $90 million that will go into the state coffers this year. A great percentage of that goes to Tunica County, which it invests in the county to create the climate of opportunity that DRA Chairman Johnson is seeking and that attracts investors from the private sector.

Recent such investments in the county include, for example, a museum and eco-park that are designed to capture the Mississippi River experience and a world class golf and tennis facility, all of which are giving thousands of tourists and convention-goers reasons to extend their stays and business trips in the Delta. In addition, expansions to Tunica’s airport and miles of four-lane roads the state bought are helping to make travel to these attractions extremely feasible.
“It’s not just about gaming,” Franklin says. “When given an opportunity to set up properly, we as a community in the Mississippi Delta can succeed. We have opportunities here in the Delta that people do not have anywhere else.”

Beverly Robertson, executive director of the National Civil Rights Museum, described the success the museum is experiencing, which includes the draw of visitors from around the nation and other countries. Also, the museum, which is housed in the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, has developed a new wing that is being used to chronicle civil and human rights history back to the 1600s, or the period in which African people arrived in the United States to be enslaved.

“Half of the people in the United States today were born after 1970, and they have no idea how things came about in the country,” Robertson says. “The National Civil Rights Museum’s mission is to educate the public about this history.”

Robertson added that the museum has developed relationships with Mississippi and Arkansas, and it draws international visitors each year. “Many people have been to all of the major cities, and they have experienced the attractions those cities have to offer. Now they want to experience the culture and the people of the south.”

An understanding of how the public learns about a tourist attraction is also important, Robertson told the audience. Tactics used to increase awareness about the museum have included co-op advertising with major corporations and getting the museum mentioned on popular television shows such as Jeopardy and top market radio talk shows such as the Tom Joyner Morning Show. “This free exposure brings people to the museum.”

Other conference presenters included Mike Jones and Alex Thomas, of the Mississippi Development Authority, who made presentations on eco-tourism and agri-tourism, respectively. Clarksdale Blues Museum’s Shelley Ritter’s presentation was on music, musicians and writers. And historian Terry Winschel, of the National Civil War Park, in Vicksburg, Miss., described the growth in Civil War theme parks and sites in the region.

Following the presentations, Johnson emphasized that the DRA’s job is to assist the industry in developing tourism in the Delta and not to assume the actual work of growing the industry.
“The job of the DRA is to bring you together to learn from each other by exchanging information and developing a plan for the whole region,” Johnson says. “We can help you do it. Send your ideas to us. We want feedback from you. Then, let us plan to convene again in the fall so that we can showcase what is being done to move forward, and we can begin moving toward the next steps.” DBJ