Tourism Advisory Board finds itself in midst of an evolving landscape

The Town-County Joint Tourism Advisory Board and representatives of both the county and town governments discuss the future of tourism marketing. From left around the table are Mountain Trails Gary Green, SVGC’s Richard Runyon, Apple House’s Katie Tewell, Walter Mabe obscured, Holiday Inn & Suites Mary Bayer, Backroom Brewery’s Billie Clifton, Vibe Properties/FR Brewery’s Kerry Barnhart, County Planning Director Taryn Logan, and the Chamber’s Niki Foster Cales. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini, Royal Examiner Video/Mark Williams

On Wednesday afternoon, February 26, the Front Royal-Warren County Joint Tourism Advisory Board met to continue to ponder its role in a turbulent present and uncertain future following the Town’s termination of two department heads – Felicia Hart and Jeremy Camp – whom the committee relied on for information and guidance regarding much of their work.

In fact, Hart’s name came up repeatedly during the meeting discussion as in “Felicia did this,” “Felicia did that,” or “Felicia and Jeremy were so helpful”. After its last meeting of February 12, Tourism Advisory Board members confirmed that they had no advance warning of Hart’s termination or the recommendation from the town manager’s office that town tourism promotion is outsourced to the private sector.

But unlike that earlier meeting held in the second-floor Town Hall conference room, at Wednesday’s meeting in the Warren County Government Center Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick was present to hear and contribute to the discussion. Tederick has been council’s point man in its sudden change of direction on staffing, departmental and budgetary commitments to Town Tourism promotion and marketing in the existing fiscal year, as well as planning for Town Tourism’s promotional future.

It didn’t take long for the advisory board and County Board of Supervisors Chairman Walter Mabe, present with North River Supervisor Delores Oates as observers, to get to the question of exactly what the present and future holds for them and tourism promotion for the town and county. Picking up a theme broached in its first meeting post-Town Tourism shakeup two weeks earlier, Shenandoah Valley Golf Club Manager Richard Runyon began the conversation among the eight committee members, largely from the local business community at least partially dependent on tourist dollars.

SVGC’s Richard Runyon, center, flanked by Mountain Trails Gary Green and the Apple House’s Katie Tewell, suggests a joint, in-house tourism marketing effort centered out of the Town Visitors Center.

Runyon suggested the two municipalities pool their financial commitments to tourism and related business development, “and develop a staff in-house, maybe entertain volunteers to work – and I was envisioning the Visitor’s Center is the main hub. If I was going to open a business in Warren County, I don’t want to go to two or three different places I’ve got to jump around. I want to see what the county has to offer my employees, taxes, conditions of living, shopping and entertainment for my employees…

“This group, we all have busy lives. We don’t have to do this. We’re business owners, business managers, what have you. We were asked to do this. So to me, I think as a group we make a recommendation to the Town and to the County since this is a joint effort, and put it on them, and let them decide,” Runyon said of a final decision on the shape of tourism promotion and related business development in this community for the future.

“What’s the decision you’re trying to decide though?” County Board Chairman Mabe said of increased cooperation between the two municipalities in maximizing both’s tourism potential. “I can’t speak for Mr. Tederick but I believe the Town is kind of for it; the County is kind of for it, but we don’t know how this board wants to make it happen. Because we can’t go at it willie-nillie. We’ve got to put it together as a proposal that says ‘This is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to do it. This is who’s going to run it – and all of the things we need to make it work. And let the Town and the County go after it. If it comes to a mutual understanding between us two, it will come to be – am I wrong?” Mabe asked, leading to Tederick’s introduction to the conversation.

Above, Walter Mabe questions Runyon on detail of his overview of a path forward – ‘I can’t speak for Mr. Tederick,’ Mabe noted in expressing a belief both the County and Town have common cause in coordinated tourism promotion. ‘Makes a lot of sense,’ Tederick, below, offered, adding ‘The devil’s in the details.’

“I’m not in a position to say right or wrong being town manager. I will say what you’re proposing makes a lot of sense,” Tederick responded to what he heard of the development of a jointly conceived plan moving forward. “And I think from a policy perspective, I believe the town council would very much entertain the concept. The devil is in the details, but I’ve always felt that this body doesn’t really have a lot of authority. I don’t know that you got a lot of direction from the Town or County,” Tederick added in what might have been interpreted by some as a slap at, at least one of the terminated Town employees involved with the Tourism Advisory Board in the past.

“I always believe as business owners, the first thing you start with is a strategic plan. What is it we want to see; who is our target market we’re trying to track; how are we going to reach them?” Tederick continued, adding, “And when I looked at the Town’s budget for tourism, you had $80-some-thousand dollars out of a $409,000 budget going towards print advertising efforts. That’s just not the right methodology, I think, in this modern era to be contacting people to come to Warren County and Front Royal.”

The interim town manager continued that he was disappointed from “a messaging perspective, a branding perspective – are we branding Warren County or are we branding Front Royal when it comes to tourism? Are we sending a message for the county and a different message for the town?” he asked a group comprised largely of business owners from both inside and outside the town limits who cater to tourist dollars from a wide variety of perspectives, including lodging, food and beverage, and recreational from hiking, camping, the river, and golf.

‘The big question is who’s going to handle the fiscal responsibilities of the money?” Tederick said of a broad, coordinated tourism and related business promotional effort, as North River Supervisor Delores Oates notes on her laptop.

“So conceptually, I think it makes a lot of sense to have this board serve as some kind of governing board of the assets. And the big question is who’s going to handle the fiscal responsibilities of the money?” Tederick said.

See the evolving and far-ranging conversation about those details that followed in this linked Royal Examiner video.

Included in that conversation were pros and cons of involvement of the Chamber of Commerce or outside online marketers and, how to best divide responsibilities for the myriad tasks and responsibilities that Vibe Properties/Front Royal Brewery owner Kerry Barnhart called impossible for one person to handle.

With Barnhart engaged in post-meeting discussion, we asked Mountain Trails owner Gary Green from the frequent mentioning of departed Town Tourism Advisory Board member and Town Community Development Director Felicia Hart’s name, if she had been that central figure who had been asked to do more than, as Barnhart put it, “anyone person could do successfully”.

“Yes, that was her,” Green offered.

Watch the Tourism meeting on this exclusive Royal Examiner video:

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Town-County Tourism Advisory Board moves forward in a vacuum of information on Town plans