According to the Virginia Tourism Corporation, the economic impact of tourism in Carroll County is steadily increasing, from $41.4 million in estimated expenditures in 2003 to an estimated $54 million in 2007.

And while Carroll County’s tourism program consists of applicable staffing, an operating state-certified visitor’s center, and a robust marketing effort, the program is in its infancy. For that reason, the Carroll County Tourism Advisory Committee and staff has determined that a five-year strategic plan will help guide the progress.

Carroll County Tourism Director Donnie Turner presented the strategic plan to the Carroll County Board of Supervisors on May 10. The board’s approval of the plan would allow tourism to continue to move forward in a positive direction, he said. The estimated increase of $12.6 million in economic impact of tourism can be attributed to past measures taken by county officials to support tourism development efforts, according to the strategic plan. Taxes on lodging, interstate lodging, meals and interstate meals all attributed to that growth since October of 2004, when the county established an office of tourism and hired its first tourism director, the strategic plan states. An increase of occupancy tax from 2 to 5 percent has also played a part in the increase.

Turner said he and committee members Amanda Bourne, Don Foster, Willard Gayheart and Bobby Patterson met for five and six hours at a time over the course of nine months to develop the strategic plan, along with the help of Randall Rose from the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC).

“Our mission statement is to promote and develop tourism in Carroll County while preserving its natural resources. Ensuring and preserving a high quality of life by including community involvement, economic development and meeting the needs of our visitors through regional and cooperative partnerships,” Turner said. “Everyone on our advisory board for tourism wants us to keep our views of what we have and keep our natural resources to be a part of what’s around us and not lose our waters and our streams, our mountains, our people and how friendly we are.”

While putting together the plan, the committee determined many premier tourism assets for Carroll County to take advantage of, including the Blue Ridge Parkway, golf courses, agri-tourism venues, scenery, Blue Ridge Music Center, New River/New River Trail, Crooked Creek Wildlife Management Area, Carroll County Courthouse, Sidna Allen Home, Carter House, Crooked Road, hiking trails, culture/lifestyle, wineries, Carroll County Historical Museum, Devil’s Den Nature Preserve, Crooked Creek Equine/Recreational Trail, and Southwest Virginia Mountain Warbler trails. The county also takes advantage of such regional attractions as the Appalachian Trail, the Rex Theatre, Mount Rogers, and Mount Airy, N.C.

“The vision statement is to become a world-class destination for our nationally-recognized scenic beauty, recreational, agricultural, and cultural/heritage assets,” Turner said. “All those things we think are the keymarks of what we are in this area.”

Turner recalled a conversation he had with a recent guest at the visitor’s center. The person wanted to know why the air seemed so much fresher in Carroll County.

“I said, ‘Well, because we are up in the mountains and we have this natural beauty and everything around us is pretty pure. You should see our rivers,’” Turner said. “I don’t know if you realize this, but in the middle of the summer on a clear day you can see the bottom of the New River at 10 feet. That is the kind of things we were looking for, along with music and our heritage, our history, artisans and crafters. This is the kind of thing in this whole strategic plan we are trying to put together.”

Turner said the conclusion of the strategic plan is that Carroll County recognizes the importance of tourism as an economic development tool for the region. Turner said according to the VTC, Carroll County had 628 people working in tourism-related businesses as of August 2008. That number continues to rise, he said.

“We have so many new tourism-related businesses that are coming into the area in the last five years, places like Applewood Music Center, which is part of the Crooked Road now, the Treasure Potts in Fancy Gap, Kanawha Valley in Dugspur, Mountain Top Antiques. These places are growing and we are having more and more tourism-related areas around,” Turner said. “What I would like to see is the tourism infrastructure grow, and I know it will with the water, septic and sewer we are putting in this area. The conclusion is that tourism is a very important part of economic development and hiring our local people in this area.”

Turner asked the board to look at the tourism strategic plan and consider it the county’s five-year plan for the future. Supervisor Andy Jackson wanted to know how tourism figures are calculated.

“The Virginia Tourism Corporation says for each dollar that you spend you get $5 back and that is from people stopping to eat at the restaurants to staying overnight to seeing attractions to going to our shops,” Turner said. “Anything from buying antiques when they come through here to going to the New River Trail. It is averaged out over time.”

Turner said the county needs to work on ways to keep visitors here longer once they get here. That is why Carroll County has a visitor’s center and why the tourism committee works so hard, Turner said.

“If we have these folks go to Foggy Ridge Cider and because of Foggy Ridge Cider stay an extra day because of that, if we can tell them the New River Trail is 59 miles of trail they can bike on instead of going to the Creeper Trail or going to Tennessee, that is our job,” Turner said. “Last year the New River Trail was the second most-visited park in the state of Virginia. It had 1.1 million people visit it last year.”

Supervisor Manus McMillian wanted to know if local motels could provide visitors a form to find out where they are from and where they are going. Turner said the county has tried that approach, but so far motels have kept that information to themselves.

“Tell them if they (provide us with that information) we might can keep them fuller,” McMillian said.

Turner said Carroll County will host many tourism-related events in the near future. In fact, two events were held recently as local staff set up shop at the Virginia Welcome Center iin Lambsburg on Thursday to promote Carroll County “with everything we can.” On Saturday, Kanawha Valley Arena in Dugspur officially became Carroll County’s second Crooked Road Affiliated Partner, along with Applewood Music Park. And from May 17-21, Turner said all the welcome center staff from the state of Virginia would be touring Carroll County.

“We really pulled a coup to get them here. We got this because of the 75th anniversary of the Blue Ridge Parkway,” Turner said. “We were up against Appomattox, Staunton, and Williamsburg for that. That is really a coup. We have them here for four days.”

Other events include the Crooked Creek Kid’s Fishing Day on June 5. From June 4-6, Kanawha Valley Arena will host the Virginia High School Rodeo State Finals.

“That is another coup,” Turner said. “Hopefully it looks like we will have them for three years in this area depending on how good a job we do.”

From June 24-27, Carroll County will also host a tour of outdoor adventure writers. Turner said Carroll landed the tour through the Cascade Highlands group, a tourism group of several area counties in Virginia and North Carolina.

“It looks like we will have around 15 of them from some of the biggest magazines in the area. We don’t know which ones, but we are going to have them,” Turner said. “We will have them for four days in Grayson, Carroll, Patrick and Smyth counties. That is another good thing to have.”

Of course, the biggest thing on the horizon for Carroll County is the Blue Ridge Parkway’s 75th anniversary celebration from September 10-12. One of the biggest events will be Sept. 11 when bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley performs at the Blue Ridge Music Center. Carroll County should be a busy place that weekend, Turner said.

“This is huge for us. We just pulled in the people from the Department of the Interior, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the U.S. Parks Services — they are renting out the entire Hampton Inn,” Turner said. “So we have them for four days and the other hotels over there are starting to fill up. That is a wonderful, wonderful thing for us to have.”

Carroll County and Hillsville will host plenty of other events as well, Turner said, such as the Carroll County Fair and the annual 4th of July celebration. Chairman Wes Hurst noted that on June 11, the Blue Ridge Music Center will also host the Governor’s Motorcycle Advisory Council. The group will be staying in town for two nights, he said.