Let’s grab those vacationers

Anyone who has barreled down an interstate highway knows that it’s difficult — except for an empty gas tank or an empty stomach — to get a motorist off the freeway. The tendency is to keep on zooming.

Yet, according to a recent study by the University of Montana’s Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research, that’s often not the case for vacationers to southwestern Montana. They tend to look for reasons to pull off the highway.

Opinion by The Helena IR

http://helenair.com/articles/2004/07/18/opinions_top/a04071804_01.txt

The study found that while 34 percent of vacationers had most of their itinerary planned in advance, another 27 percent had few specific plans and were flexible about where they might visit next.

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And as it turns out, when it comes to seat-of-the-pants planning during a trip, 34 percent of those vacationers use highway signs as their guide to their next stop. All of which raises a question: Do vacationing motorists approaching Helena know what they’ll be missing if they just zoom on by?

The answer, of course, is no, not really. But that could change. The Montana Historical Society, the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce, Gateway, and others are talking seriously about chipping in to provide just such signage.

It’s the thing to do. Simply a sign touting Helena as Montana’s capital city could make a difference. So could information about what the Historical Society’s museum has to offer. How many passers-by would head for that off-ramp if they knew the magnificent St. Helena Cathedral was towering above Last Chance Gulch only a couple of easy miles away? Here, a picture on a billboard would be worth any number of words.

Lewis and Clark County might not be a gateway to great national parks like Yellowstone and Glacier, but it has plenty to offer tourists. According to the institute, in 2003 nonresidents spent $239 million in Gallatin County and $105 million in Park County, Montana’s main routes to Yellowstone. They spent $149 million in Flathead County below Glacier. In Lewis and Clark, nonresident spending amounted to $69 million — no pittance, but considerably less.

With potentially millions to gain, a relatively cheap highway heads-up to vacationers makes all the sense in the world.