By Staff
Panel discussion on Jan. 29to look at tourist industry
By CLAUD HODGES
Senior Reporter
Washington and Beaufort County are looking to New Bern and Craven County for some ideas to help Washington and Beaufort County develop a continuously-growing, strong and everlasting tourism industry.
New Bern and Craven County tourism officials are coming to Washington Jan. 29 to share their thoughts on the advancement they have made on building, managing and maintaining a strong tourism industry.
The Washington Tourism Development Authority invites everyone to a panel discussion on “New Bern as a Tourism Model.”
The event will be held at 6 p.m. Jan. 29 at the Washington Civic Center.
It will be an open discussion with leaders from New Bern, including representatives from Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation, the New Bern-Craven County Convention &Visitor Bureau, Craven County Chamber of Commerce and Tryon Palace.
In 1979, New Bern and Craven County officials and community leaders established the Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation.
The organization was formed to spearhead and coordinate the revitalization of the New Bern downtown and redevelopment of the city’s waterfront. The downtown district is on the shores of the waterfront.
During the 18th century and most of the 19th century when New Bern’s downtown and waterfront were being established as an important crossroads between exporters from the seas and importers from land, the downtown district and waterfront were vibrant with trade and commerce.
However, when freight trains and overland trucks came into the picture during the late 1880s and early 1960s, respectively, the New Bern waterfront became static and the New Bern downtown spiraled downward.
Starting in the 1960s and remaining a strong economic force today, shopping malls and free-standing stores on major roadways filled with vehicles are driving commerce throughout the United States.
Places slowly-dying because of this form of growth have brought life into the entrepreneurial spirit and life of many American commercial leaders to infuse energy into areas that have slumped like the New Bern downtown and waterfront.
In the late 1970s, leaders from New Bern and Craven County grasped the reigns and brought their ideas together and have built a thriving waterfront again and a promising downtown district .
While today’s downtown and waterfront districts are different from yesterday’s, they both generated and generate, respectively, economically viable interests for New Bern and Craven County.
According to the Swiss Bear Downtown Development Corporation Web site, over the past 25 years, more than $70 million has been invested in the rehabilitation and new construction of 70 buildings, including four new waterfront hotels and three marinas, in the downtown and waterfront areas.
It says that property values have increased on an average of 440 percent, approximately 200 businesses employ 2,300 people, and tourism, now a major industry in New Bern and Craven County, generated $70.4 million in 2000.