Tourism, historic preservation and downtown

Because it deals with buildings and the forces that support them, historic preservation is involved in a lot of activities. One important activity is tourism.

By Paul Putz – City/County Historic Preservation officer Helena IR

In the late 1970s an article describing a study of tourist interests in a nearby state caught my eye. One of the questions asked was how much time tourists spend "sightseeing." No other qualification was given that word.

A call to the state university department of economics with an offer of grant money to conduct my own study netted important results. We discovered what "sightseeing" really meant to travelers by breaking down the term into specifics like "looking at natural scenery."

Of course, "visiting historic sites" was one of the options respondents could choose. We also asked people to rate the strength of their interest in these "sightseeing" areas.

To our astonishment, 25 percent of them expressed a strong interest in visiting historic sites, while 60 percent were strongly to very interested in those places. Mind you, this was from a visitor pool of over 2 million.

The tourism department of that state was sufficiently impressed with such statistics to conduct specific marketing efforts around historic sites and museums. They have never looked back. Nor has the rest of the country.

Similar studies were being conducted about the same time and the results have created a special focus on traveler behavior generally called "heritage tourism."

The National Trust for Historic Preservation calls it Cultural Heritage Tourism and describes it as "… traveling to experience the places, artifacts and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present. It includes cultural, historic and natural resources," (from http://www.nationaltrust.org/heritage_tourism).

The tourism industry now recognizes that seeking experiences of this kind plays a major role in travelers’ selections of places to visit and things to do.

Considerable attention is placed on heritage as an attractor throughout the country and the link between heritage and economic development is now standard fare in travel literature and tourism strategy.

The result is even greater appreciation for historic areas on the part of travelers because historic attractions have developed experience in satisfying visitor needs. Historic commercial districts in particular have honed their promotion and development skills to meet traveler expectations.

When in another city, one only has to look for the historic downtown to find great restaurants, interesting shopping and fine architecture. There will be historic displays, hopefully a museum of local history and a special ambiance. It will have something for everyone.

This does not happen by accident. Hard work, long range planning and careful investment create it. Laboring behind those old brick facades are modern business people unified in their intent to make heritage tourism work for them.

They understand they are part of a district reliant on its historical appearance to entice customers both local and traveling. They know that, once arrived, customers must find what they want or they won’t stay long. Unity is their key in designing, preserving, upgrading and promoting the historic district.

Helena’s historic downtown is among these special places worthy of regional and national promotion as a site to see.

Area residents can be proud of downtown as a heritage tourism offering of high quality and each of us can support it by being our own heritage tourist and promoter. Stop by downtown for coffee. Or dinner. Pick up a unique gift there.

Also, tell your out-of-state friends to visit historic Helena and Lewis and Clark County. Travel statistics prove they’ll be glad they did.

Paul Putz is the City/County Historic Preservation officer.

http://helenair.com/articles/2003/11/01/helena/a09110103_04.txt