Randy Rose Has A Plan For Highland County Tourism

Monterey, VA – The Highland Economic Development Authority is looking for community input to develop a tourism plan. That was the central issue at the June 3 meeting of the EDA and its tourism subcommittee. Randy Rose of the Virginia Tourism Corporation was the guest speaker at the meeting and his goal is to see that Highland County gets a tourism plan before the end of this year.

Tourism is an 18 billion dollar a year industry in Virginia. The Virginia Tourism Corporation estimates that tourists spend over 15 million dollars each year in Highland County impacting over 176 county jobs. EDA chair Betty Mitchell describes Mr. Rose’s proposal for developing the county’s tourism plan.

“He is encouraging the community to really look at tourism, think about the planning process. That’s something that the EDA has been very anxious to have as many different sector plans for the community as possible” says Mitchell. “The tourism sub-committee, headed by Carolyn Pohowsky of the Chamber, will be working on the tourism plan.”

Dates for Public Meetings Set

“Randy is offering, as part of his services, to come and conduct a series of four public input sessions to find out from people what it is that they’d like to see developed in the way of tourism” says Mitchell. “All of those are open to the public and widely advertised, and we encourage people to come out.”

Meetings of the EDA tourism subcommittee have been scheduled for June 30, July 27, August 23 and August 24 at the Highland Center. The public is encouraged to attend and present their ideas on what the tourism plan should include.

“Randy has worked with a fair number of communities doing these plans. He’s had a lot of experience doing this and is from a rural area himself, down in southwest Virginia.”

The next meeting of the EDA tourism subcommittee is scheduled for Wednesday, June 30, 6 PM in the Highland Center.

Story By

Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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