Page 215 - Tourism The International Business

This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

The center could be located in a store, hotel/motel, or the Chamber of Commerce office. However, it is
preferable to have it in a building of its own. It is not necessary to have much space as long as the center is
attractive, easily recognized, and large enough to provide display racks for brochures on local and area attractions.

One approach is to have a center with an unusual type building—a tepee, covered wagon, log cabin, grist mill,
replica of historic building (The Alamo or Judge Roy Bean's saloon perhaps). The center should be unusual and
attractive on the inside as well as the outside. It must draw attention to itself. A large sign should identify it.
Posters, photographs, and historic artifacts are appropriately displayed inside. Welcoming signs on the major
routes to town should give the location and hours of operation. It is important that your staff, volunteers, or paid
employees, be well-informed and enthusiastic individuals who understand their purpose and have a knowledge of
and pride in their community.

Exhibit 79: Tourist center must carry

information on area activities. Panning for gold
near Queenstown, New Zealand. (Courtesy New
Zealand Tourist and Publicity Office.)

Visitor centers can double as a reservation bureau for your hotels and motels. Often the hotels and motels help
finance such projects and their operation. Alternatively, a leading hotel or motel can be sought out to donate the
necessary space to the community or at least provide rent at a minimum rate.
In sum, hospitality and tourist information facilities are important in promoting the attractions of the
community. Additionally they serve the important purpose of providing a method for surveying the tourist
population. These are the places where valuable information can be gathered through registrations, questionnaires,

and interviews with little contamination of data from the non-tourist or the risk of alienating the visitors (in this
latter case they have voluntarily stopped which is far different from being stopped or interrupted as would be
required in some information gathering situations).
The number and quality of the information centers in your community should be assessed. Do you have an
information center and is it adequately attracting people to stop? Is the exterior and interior attractive and is it
strategically placed and identified so visitors can be enticed to stop without feeling they have to go out of their way?

Tourism the International Business 215 A Global Text