Clark County Economic Development Corporation's 25th Anniversary, Tourism
Friday, May 29th, 2015 -- 1:26 PM
-25 years ago, the process began to create an economic development organization for Clark County. The dream became a reality with the help of a long list of volunteer members of a startup committee to create the Clark County Economic Development Corporation and Tourism Bureau.In a special celebration of the CCEDC's 25th Anniversary we've had a special report about the past, present and future of the CCEDC. On Tuesday, I had an opportunity to sit down with Tom Kahn and Terri Johnson, two members of Clark County's Tourism Committee, and we talked about several items regarding tourism in the county and its importance to the county.
First Tom and Terri provided me with some history about the county's Tourism Committee.
Tom: "I started back in 2004-2004. At the time, Richard Heath was the Economic Development Director and he came up with the idea that we should start a Tourism Committee. So, it was already started about a year and a half before I joined. At that time, Clark County was 69th out of 72 counties in tourism dollars being brought in. We thought we could definitely put something together where we could jump some of these counties and, hopefully, maybe even some day get into the mid 50's. We did that in the course of the last 2 years. We're 55th in direct tourism spending now."
Terri: "We also put our tourism information, we have a tourism website, and we also update the state of Wisconsin's, for Clark County, website. We have done several brochures. We distribute those locally and we get a lot of phone calls out of the area for people that our visiting and we send out a lot of literature here."
The Tourism Committee has had a hand in many county initiatives including the visitors guide, the Spring into the Arts Studio Tour, Friends of the Fairgrounds and hosting the 2014 Alice in Dairyland Finals.
Unfortunately, many that live in the county feel there isn't much to do, and although Tom and Terri had slightly differing opinions on that topic, they agreed that there is plenty to do right here in Clark County.
Tom: "One of the things we found in Milwaukee is that a lot of people in Milwaukee didn't know what there was to offer in Milwaukee. I don't think that that's just a problem in a small area like this one. I think it's just a problem that's pretty universal. There's just a lot of people that don't take the time, unless something is put in front of them, to understand what we have."
Terri: "I find that there are still things for people that have lived here all their life that they're not aware of that this county has to offer."
This was the third part of the 4-part program about the Clark County Economic Development Corporation and Tourism Bureau. Next week, for the final chapter, we'll see what the future holds for the Clark County Economic Development Corporation and Tourism Bureau.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.