January 22, 2009 Issue
Watauga TDA Director Has Full Plate
Watauga County Tourism Development Authority Chair Rob Holton and the TDA’s new executive director, Wright Tilley, presented a quarterly report on the authority to the Watauga County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night. That report included a five-page action plan that Tilley will be responsible for overseeing and executing.
As High Country Press reported last week, the Watauga County TDA has launched the ExploreBooneArea.com website to provide comprehensive information about activities, lodging and other tourist-related information specific to the county, but the site is not complete. Tilley is currently analyzing search keywords and is tasked with rewriting all the web copy to ensure that it includes all the relevant keywords. In addition, the next two phases of the site that Holton hopes to launch by the beginning of the summer will include in-depth information on outdoor activities available in Watauga County. The goal is to position the county as one of the two top outdoor recreation sites east of the Mississippi.
To facilitate this website development, the TDA will hire a senior outdoor recreation planner who will develop and implement an outdoor recreation plan for the county. This work will include identifying and photographing hiking trails and grading them by degree of difficulty and topographical change, as well as identifying locations for rock climbing, biking, tubing, fishing and other outdoor activities and providing access points and parking areas for all of these opportunities. The recreation planner will also work on the Middle Fork Greenway project and the Mountains to Sea trail, planning routes, obtaining easements and securing parking and access points. In addition, the recreation planner will write, apply for and administer grants.
Meanwhile, Tilley will be focusing on sponsoring outdoor recreation events and top-ranked teams, promoting local lodging, creating promotional packages, encouraging businesses to become Green Business Plan members, pursuing joint promotions and creating a winter festival built around the Choose & Cut Christmas tree industry, winter snowsports, Christmas parades and winter music events. Tilley is also charged with developing a brand for Watauga County and the Boone area and with developing cross-marketing plans at major attractions and high-traffic areas.
The Watauga County TDA has received a $35,000 planning grant to explore the development of a greenway from Boone to Todd, and Holton said the authority wants to go after more grants and leverage approximately $400,000 into $1 to $2 million in grant funding by using the TDA money as match funds.
“Realistically, it will take two to three years to get this to-do list done,” Holton said, but he added that many of the action plan items should be well along by the end of 2009.
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