Workshops, meetings and a 10-year plan are along the road Loudoun's tourism leaders will travel to develop a shared visitor designation vision.
"[Loudoun] has a spirit to offer. How to get a cohesive vision for that is the first step," said Peter Abrahams, vice-chairman of the Loudoun Convention and Visitors Association (LCVA) and publisher of the "Washington Flyer Magazine."
"Loudoun has a unique feeling, and we have to capture that feeling," said Abrahams. "I don't know what that feeling is. The feeling you get when you are in the county is not like anything in the world."
The LCVA aims to develop a tourism plan with input from tourism partners and other organizations on ways to attract visitors to Loudoun. LCVA hosted five workshops from May 7-9 during National Tourism Week in Cascades, Leesburg, Lovettsville, Middleburg and Roundhill to begin generating ideas from the 70 participants who attended. The participants included representatives from county and town government and tourism-related and other types of businesses. A compilation meeting on the five workshop discussions followed on June 10, which was also attended by 70 people.
"We are the destination meeting organization that represents the entire tourism industry, but this is a chance to define what [members of] the tourism industry want from each other and from the tourism industry," said Cheryl Kilday, LCVA president. "This plan needs to be embraced by other organizations and tourism partners. That way the input continues."
WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS discussed the current state of tourism in Loudoun and ways the county could increase and promote the industry. The participants suggested turning the county into a spa destination or a duty-free zone for international visitors or requesting pilots landing commercial flights at Dulles Washington International Airport welcome visitors to Loudoun County instead of to Washington, D.C.
"The visitor has a tremendous impact on the health and vitality of Loudoun's economic stability," said Ashburn resident Michelle Lapierre, incoming LCVA board member and a member of the global sales leadership team with Marriott International in Washington, D.C. "The role of the LCVA is to ensure we have the appropriate leadership in place ... and the appropriate vision to protect and enhance the role of the visitor in Loudoun County."
"In all five groups, there was a shared feeling that our visitors are overlooked," said Vicki Bendure, owner of Bendure Communications in Middleburg. "This group also echoed those sentiments."
LCVA's consultant Destination Consultancy Group LLC had an interactive discussion June 20, providing a preliminary report on the ideas presented at the five workshops. Don Anderson and Bob Fleming, facilitators of the workshops and of the meeting, said that workshop attendees thought that tourism in Loudoun is based on three core appeals, including the county's historical, agricultural and business makeup. The county's uniqueness in offering a mix of rural and urban vistas also brings tourism to the county, the attendees said.
"This session was to report what we found, but more importantly to engage the community in helping develop that vision," Abrahams said. "We have to capture that spirit among other things and to grow tourism in a way that is acceptable to the community at large."
THE CONSULTANTS listed the qualities of a potential visitor destination compiled from the workshops, including having friendly local inhabitants, high standards of cleanliness, safe and secure surroundings and an appealing mix of urban and rural settings.
"Travel in the U.S. is somewhat level, so if we're going to increase our marketshare, we have to take it ourselves," Kilday said. "We ought to get everybody working together to have the right products and services in place."
Members of the tourism industry need to work together and compete against businesses in other counties, Kilday said. "This will give us an overall road map to 2012, so they are competing outside of Loudoun and not within Loudoun," she said.
Anderson and Fleming are scheduled to present a draft report to the LCVA board of directors in mid-July. LCVA plans to form seven advisory task forces, including those for marketing and promotion, product development, community relations, and other aspects of tourism. The task forces will be asked to refine the report's information and place the information in the tourism plan, Kilday said. After the task forces begin meeting, another workshop is expected to be scheduled.