Page 133 - Clackamas County Watertourism Strategic Plan. Final.v3

STRATEGIC PLAN FOR WATER-BASED TOURISM IN CLACKAMAS COUNTY, OREGON THE OPPORTUNITIES
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incentives, and generally control the areas where tourism occurs. Visitors want to see small towns. Campers, canoeists and those lovers of the great Community
outdoors enjoy stopping in small towns for a meal, nighttime entertainment or to pick up a few forgotten items. A strategic plan to increase water- Involvement
based tourism in Clackamas County, therefore, should identify actions at the municipal level. These actions range from infrastructure improvements to
local development policies, to marketing and public events.

Each action item will be unique to the municipality. Ideally, they are identified and implemented by the municipality, however, the scope of this
research didn’t allow for community-based meetings with high levels of public involvement.

The following is a list of some suggested actions, but it is not exhaustive. They are a result of the consultant’s interactions with community leaders,
meetings and site visits throughout the summer of 2017. Additional community-based water recreation planning sessions should take place throughout the county in each
municipality that is interested in leveraging its public waters to increase tourism. A model for these types of meetings already exist. The Bicycle Tourism Studios are
community-based planning exercises promoted by Travel Oregon and its partners. The Studios are public engagement processes designed to foster development of bicycle
tourism through improved infrastructure, services, businesses, events, and programs. This project started with a request to the consultant to investigate if a similar model for
water-based tourism would be productive. After analyzing how water-based tourism flows through the county, where the assets and interests are located, what untapped
potential is available to municipalities, and the future markets for water-based tourism in Clackamas County, a public engagement process for water tourism, like the bicycle
studios, would be highly effective and is strongly encouraged.

A series of community-level water tourism workshops in each municipality should be conducted to identify their greatest water tourism opportunities and to strategize on how
to use them to their advantage. These workshops are essential for building public support, which in turn, is essential in successful implementation of any public project. The
workshops should be designed as a series of 4 to 7 public meetings that go from understanding the facts on the status of today’s tourism market, to identification of assets and
visioning the future, to goals and objectives, to strategies, and finally implementation actions, responsibilities and evaluations. This amount of public engagement wasn’t
possible under this project’s scope nor was it known at the time if this would be the correct and effective approach. Today, based on the results of this study, we know their
potential effectiveness, plus the information gathered during this study will serve as a solid foundation to launch this next phase. The data in this report on water tourism
demand and untapped markets, can be used to help the public align their unique water tourism assets with the potential opportunities.

The following municipal recommendations are presented for consideration and a launching point to start these community discussions.
Estacada
Events: Currently Estacada is the closest location to the County’s largest whitewater festival, the Upper Clackamas Whitewater Festival. The festival has attracted hundreds of
boaters and spectators from the Pacific Northwest for 34 years. However, each year the boaters drive 17 miles right through Estacada to the festival site and the town gets little
benefit from the event. There are several practical reasons that the festival occurs outside of town: first, the whitewater is 17 miles upstream from the town; it is not possible to