New travel guide highlights the local area

New visitors bureau to open at Lake Wallenpaupack

By TOM KANE

HAWLEY, PA - Here comes the summer and here comes the Pocono’s fix on it.

Everyone knows about the rising price of a gallon of gasoline, but not everyone has decided yet what they’re going to do about it, vacation-wise.

“People are going to stick close to home this summer, what with gasoline approaching $4 a gallon, air travel becoming more and more expensive and Spartan with the falling value of the dollar, compared to overseas,” said Carl Wilgus, executive director of the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau (PMVB).

Good reasons why folks will take day trips or short vacations in their cars, driving at a gas-efficient 55 mph.

“We’ll be ready for them,” Wilgus said.

PMVB has released a new travel guide for the area around Milford, Stroudsburg, Lake Wallenpaupack/Honesdale/Hawley and Jim Thorpe. The Wallenpaupack/Hawley Chamber of Commerce has printed 130,000 copies of the slick booklet, and will distribute them around the Northeast, all the Atlantic states and even worldwide, he said.

The members of the chamber, their friends and supporters gathered at the site of the new visitors’ bureau on Route 6, next to the lake.

“Statistics show that people linger in a community they are visiting for two or three hours, will stay to eat dinner, will shop and even stay overnight,” said John Kiesendahl, president of the chamber and owner of the Woodloch Pines Resort.

With the new visitors bureau as a focal point when it opens in the fall, the area will be even more of a destination. What will result is an increase in tourism in general and an all-around boost to the economy, he said.

“There are three things necessary for success in the hospitality business,” Kiesendahl said. “They are location, location, location.”

According to AAA, 41 percent of respondents said they would take trips of shorter distance. “We are a three-hour drive for one-third of the U.S. population,” Wilgus said. “We have the two big cities of New York and Philadelphia just a few hours away.”

The new building, which will cost around $955,000, is being financed by The Dime Bank, Honesdale National Bank and Wayne Bank, he said.

“The chamber will raise $350,000 through local efforts; $250,000 will be given to the PMVB and the other $100,000 will be used to finish the lower level of the new building for the offices of the chamber,” he said.

When complete, the building will be open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. year round.