Historic Centralia Attracting More Tourists

One of the aspects of the Wilson Hotel rehabilitation that we have recently been developing through our business plan model in order to secure infrastructure financing, is the element of the project that addresses the future value of Centralia being a “tourist destination.”  We have been collecting data to support that end, primarily in the area of heritage tourism and the draw that historic districts bring to the traveling public at large.     

Through the process of building our data bank of research for our project, we sometimes stumble across interesting information that is related to the greater picture of historic Centralia.  One recent resource we discovered was the Shop America Alliance web site. 

  The Shop America Alliance represents hundreds of the nations premier shopping & dining destinations, which offer tourism programs specifically designed for travelers from both domestic and international ports of origin.  This organization partners to offer a wide variety of entertainment options for travelers of all ages from coast to coast.  

The SAA founded a study called, “Tourism 101: Basic Information for Selling to Tourists.”  We have included several noteworthy discoveries documented in this study in our business Performa for the Wilson Hotel project.  We wanted to take the opportunity to share a few highlights here on the blog since we found this information helpful in understanding the importance of the retail sales community in tourist destinations both historic and modern day.

$703 billion is spent annually in both domestic and international markets on tourism

$1.3 TRILLION in direct, indirect and induced travel expenditures, including international travelers’ spending in the United States alone

  This spending accounts for $105 billion in tax revenue for local, state and federal governments

Direct spending averages $1.8 billion per day in the United States; $75 million per hour; $1.2 million per minute; and $21,000 per second

Shopping & dining are the top two travel activities in the United States

  Cultural and heritage tourism is # 3 !!! *wow*

  Travelers who engage in shopping and cultural or heritage tourism spend more, stay longer and have better travel experiences overall