By Mary Owen
Oregon’s Rural Tourism Studio is getting a leg up in the Santiam Canyon.
GROW-EDC Executive Director Allison McKenzie said tourism is the third largest industry in Oregon, behind agriculture and wood products.
“When GROW pursued bringing Travel Oregon’s pilot Rural Tourism Studio accelerator here this spring, we did it with an eye toward helping our communities take advantage of the growth in tourism and our outdoor recreational assets to build a more robust tourism economy throughout the North Santiam River Region,” McKenzie said. “For us that means, Aumsville/Scio to Marion Forks and Breitenbush.”
High on the group’s to-do list is to prepare for the visitors who will crowd the Santiam Canyon for the solar eclipse Aug. 21, 2017. A meeting will be held at 3-4:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12 at Santiam Hospital’s Freres Auditorium in Stayton.
“Anyone interest in hearing more about this opportunity for our communities is invited to attend,” McKenzie said.
“The purpose is for people to hear what’s expected for the weekend before the eclipse, which could bring about 30,000 people to our area.”
McKenzie said people have already requested to rent land for the weekend.
“This is a great opportunity for all of us,” she said. “It’s also quite a challenge with so many extra folks here, about double the population that lives in our neck of the woods!”
As well as preparing for the eclipse, the group is exploring ways to promote tourism throughout the Santiam Canyon.
Two workshops and a series of online trainings by Travel Oregon in March and April “helped ramp up skills, taught the ins and outs of rural tourism and helped those participating put a successful action plan together to take projects from idea to implementation,” McKenzie said.
“Each of our two tourism workshops drew 75 people with 89 people overall in attendance representing communities, businesses and organizations from one end of the corridor to the other,” McKenzie said.
“With such robust participation, Travel Oregon suggested we choose three tourism projects to work on rather than the single project we – and they – were expecting.”
In the final workshop, McKenzie said three projects were selected as priorities:
Create a regional marketing strategy to help attract visitors to the area.
Create a local tourism network to build relationships between those working in and interested in the hospitality/outdoor recreation industries throughout the region, making it easier to package products, refer business to each other, and make the visitor experience meaningful and memorable.
Create an annual River Festival to celebrate the North Santiam River as the connecting link between communities and outdoor recreational assets in the foothills and towns.
“More than one-third of workshop participants are part of one of these three groups, and all of them have met at least three times since the workshops to get the ball rolling on these projects,” McKenzie said.
“A fourth longer-range project is focusing on signage in the area.”
McKenzie said about 30 individuals are working together on the projects in three action teams, with GROW-EDC leading the charge. She facilitates the groups and is part of each of the action teams.
The steering committee for the tourism effort includes: Kelly Schreiber, Stayton-Sublimity Chamber of Commerce; Grady McMahan, U.S. Forest Service; Dave Shelton, North Santiam Chamber of Commerce; Dean O’Donnell, Detroit Lake Recreation Area Business Association; Tabitha Henricksen and Elaina Turpin, North Santiam Young Professionals; Teresa Van de Veere, Rushing River Inn, Idanha; and Karen Widmer, The Canyon Weekly.
Action team participants have been gathering information to get a clear picture of all the assets that the North Santiam Canyon has to offer and figure out what visitor information already exists and where it is accessed, McKenzie said.
“Right now this group is doing a deep inventory of this kind of information so they can begin populating Travel Salem and Travel Oregon’s websites with information that is easy for visitors to access,” she said.
“We expect this process to take about a year. This group has also begun discussing what to ‘call’ this region. That process is on hold for a bit as they tackle some of this heavy inventory work,” she said.
Field trips to three area sites were held late May and early June, with about 20 participants at each of the networking lunches and some 15 to 18 who hopped on buses or carpooled to all or parts of each tour.
Tourism hotspots were highlighted at Detroit and Idanha; Gates, Mill City, Lyons and Little North Fork; and Scio, Stayton, Sublimity and Aumsville.
“On every field trip, every person learned about or saw something that they hadn’t know about or seen before,” she said. “They loved being on the bus together and getting to visit between stops. People were so surprised at how beautiful the parks are, and many had never been to those in Detroit, Aumsville, Stayton and Lyons, and in some cases, weren’t even aware they existed.”
Following the tours, McKenzie got feedback that local folks were already exploring some of the sites visited.
“When we heard that local people were already practicing what the tourism workshops preached – taking friends and family to special places right here – we were really pleased,” she said.
“That’s what we were hoping for. The best way for a rural area to begin building out their tourism economy is to invite visiting friends and family to check out some of those special places close to home.”
According to Travel Oregon, sustainable tourism stimulates local economies, protects and enhances local resources and fosters community pride.
Community leaders, tourism entrepreneurs, tour operators, lodging property owners, outdoor recreation enthusiasts, restaurateurs and anyone interested in local tourism can participate in the program.
Additionally, graduating communities can apply for up to $10,000 from Travel Oregon’s Matching Grant Program to support the implementation of priority projects.
For information, call McKenzie at 503-871-5188.
