Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell Visits Homestead To Unveil New Governor’s Suite

Hot Springs, VA – Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was at The Homestead in Hot Springs last week for the ribbon cutting to unveil the new Governor’s Suite at the resort. The Governor’s Suite is part of a $4 million renovation that marks the 80th anniversary of the Historic Tower section at The Homestead. During his visit Governor McDonnell talked about his work in promoting tourism in Virginia.

“We’ve got about 8 million dollars in tourism grants, cooperative advertising grants, that’ll be used to basically market Virginia” says Governor McDonnell. “We’ve got some specific grants for film production and wine production, and other parts of the agriculture industry that will help market those areas.”

Asked if any of the grant money will trickle down to localities like Bath County, Governor McDonnell confirms that it will.

“It will be done in concert with the local economic development authorities, the local Chambers of Commerce. We understand, Mr. Jefferson had it right, government closest to the people does govern best.”

“So many of the good ideas that we have in Virginia are coming from people in the local communities and forwarding those ideas to Richmond.”

Governor McDonnell says tourism is a huge part of Virginia’s economy, with hundreds of thousands of people making their living from the industry.

Tamra Talmadge-Anderson is the Director of Public Relations at the Virginia Tourism Office.

“The grants help us bring dollars directly to the communities” says Talmadge. “They develop partnerships locally and we provide matching grants for them to help market their tourism destination.”

Bath County is currently searching for a full time tourism director. Bath also has a new tourism plan that was created by the Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development.