By Steve Keenan
Officials in Ansted have cast an eye toward the future, and they believe a tourism development plan is one of the main keys to the town’s success.
Mayor Pete Hobbs, members of the AIM committee and the recently-established Blueprint Communities team met last week with a graduate studies class from West Virginia University to explore ways to enhance Ansted’s tourism economy and promote economic development in the process.
The graduate studies class, under the direction of Dr. Jinyang Deng, a professor of recreation, parks and tourism resources, spent several days in the Ansted area to evaluate a tourism development plan under consideration by Hobbs and the Blueprint Communities team. The students will return for three days of further public discourse in November.
Leveraging tourism assets is one of the key elements of long-term planning being undertaken by the Ansted Blueprint Communities team to help restore economic vitality to the town and to make Ansted a more desirable place to live and play, Hobbs feels.
A plan evaluation, along with recommendations from an outside group of future industry leaders, should ensure that Ansted’s plan is attainable, Hobbs added.
“What we hope to achieve is a fairly comprehensive plan (validated by an outsider’s point of view), to follow as we move our community tourism development forward in Ansted,” the mayor said. “Or at least to understand that the internally developed plan we are currently following is still valid, or how to modify it based on the observations and findings of the WVU students.”
The graduate students will apply a methodology developed by The Mountain Institute entitled “Community Based Tourism for Conservation and Development.” The process will include a series of public interviews and presentations resulting in development of a tourism plan. The next series of meetings will occur Nov. 8-10, and the final report is targeted for a January 2008 completion.
The AIM committee and other interested citizens will provide public input to the data collection and validation process.
According to Hobbs, Doug Arbogast, president of Travel Green Appalachia, is working with the sociology department of West Virginia State University to develop an undergraduate community-based tourism course. He partnered with WVU and Dr. Deng to engage his graduate students to pilot a planning process that will also be used as field experience for the WVSU undergraduate course. Other local universities, including Concord College, will possibly get involved as Arbogast’s goal is to engage students in providing tangible, practical recommendations and support to Appalachian communities interested in leveraging and developing their tourism assets.
Arbogast selected Ansted because of an established relationship with Hobbs and the active community organization already engaged in the Blueprint Communities program, and arranged for the WVU participation.
Ansted Blueprint Team members include Hobbs, Gretchen Cramer, Steve Friedenmaker, Elmer Nagye, Sally Benson, Joe Neal, Martha Lane and Mike Gray.
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Hobbs feels Ansted is poised to make some great strides related to tourism.
“We have all the assets we need to be a true gateway community for the New River Gorge and Hawks Nest State Park,” he said, adding that a sharing of assets is a key to the future.
One of the main components for success would be a proposed national rivers trail linking Hawks Nest and the New River Gorge National River with the Ansted Rail Trail, which has been developed over the past five years or so.
Hobbs said he’s “pretty optimistic” that could occur in the next couple of years.
Ansted had a population of about 1,700 in the latest census figures, but Hobbs stresses that the “area of influence, including Hico, Victor and others, effectively doubles our population.”
“We need to think a little more regionally,” he said. “And we need better communication with our outside partners.”
— E-mail: skeenan@register-herald.com
