Tourism economy healthy

Pocono bureau receives rare accreditation

By TOM KANE

RIVER VALLEY - While the national economy is on a downturn, local tourism is on an upswing.

Carl Wingus, executive director of the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau (PMVB), told the Wayne County Commissioners at their meeting on July 22 that recent tourism figures are showing signs of strength.

“We had one of the best Fourth of July celebrations in recent memory according to our board members,” Wingus said. He has been on the job with the bureau for six and a half months and is very dependent on the bureau’s board for judging growth trends, he said.

“You couldn’t find a room in a hotel that was empty or a site in a campground that was not taken,” he said. “One of our oldest board members remarked that it was just like the old days.”

In New York, the message was very much the same. “Seventy percent of survey respondents reported that the overall level of business during the holiday week was good or excellent and 66 percent said occupancy was as good, if not better than the same week last year,” said Daniel Murphy, New York State Hospitality and Tourism president.

Apparently, the Poconos and the Catskills are drawing what is being called the “one-tank trip,” meaning that it is attracting visitors who can use one tank of gas to come here and return home.

“The slow economy may in some ways be working in our favor,” Wingus said.

Wingus remarked how trying air travel has become, with additional costs, fewer flights and jam-packed cabins. “That’s another reason why people may want to stay home,” he said.

“Of course, we are a weather-dependent industry and can’t do a whole lot if the weather doesn’t cooperate, but what we can do we are doing,” he said.

On another matter, Wingus announced that the bureau has received a rare accreditation by the Destination Marketing Accreditation Association, an international tourist agency.

“They have accredited only 58 visitors’ bureaus in the nation. Two, which have received the accreditation in Pennsylvania, are the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention Center in Amish Lancaster County and the Visit Pittsburgh Bureau.

When asked about the future of the Mountain Laurel Center for the Performing Arts, he remarked that the owners of the facility?Wolfington/O’Neal of Philadelphia?were interviewing management organizations who may take over the site. “They are aiming to have a seasonal program by 2009,” he said. “We will support them in their efforts to market the facility and its program.

A year ago, the PMVB removed its funding of $1 million from the center, which received a poor audition report from the state and experienced a series of mishaps in its management. The center is closed this year.