County has much to offer its home folks and its tourists

Envision walkways into the bays and swamps and along the rivers in Marion. Envision groups of birding, canoeing and other outdoor enthusiasts making plans to spend a weekend, or a week, or two, in the county enjoying the natural resources. Envision music festivals and car shows.

Imagine folks visiting the area, touring the historical sites and learning about Marion’s black-American, native-American and white-American history.

About 40 folks from Marion County, with Marion County’s well-being and future at the heart of their discussions, gathered with an international tourism group’s officials on March 25. Similarly interested folks in other areas gathered on March 26 in Dillon and in Kingstree, meeting with the same international officials.

In November 2005, New Carolina’s Tourism Cluster Committee commissioned a study by international tourism consultant Michael MacNulty of Tourism Development International (TDI) in Ireland. That group has been tasked with completing a statewide Tourism Action Plan. Included in the plan is a call for planning at several regional levels. In 2007, state legislators passed an appropriation for product development. A part of that money is being used to develop detailed long-range plans for each of eight tourism product development areas.

Marion County falls into the East Product Development area (EPDA) or Eastern Heartland area, as Robert Cleverdon, director of international projects for the company said. Counties included in the group are Chesterfield, Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Lee, Marion, and Williamsburg, the area we all know and love as the Pee Dee region of the state..

The two and a half hour meeting brought together educators, retirees, business owners, city and county officials, visitor program coordinators, chamber of commerce directors and others. The fact-finding meeting was to help consultants gain a clearer understanding of key issues and challenges to tourism issues in the region.

Information about the statewide effort can be found at the S.C. Parks, Recreation and Tourism Web site, http://www.scprt.com.

Already, Mullins’ and Marion’s Main Streets are attractions. This is horse country, as evidenced by the April 25 Horse Show that is again being presented in another hot county commodity: our very own outdoor theatre. The Carolina Entertainment Complex is a strong attraction for the area. Tie that venture together with our Mullins-based Wildlife Action camps and education center, the S.C. Tobacco Museum, the Marion Opera House, the county’s charming inns and historical sites and Marion County is a viable opportunity waiting to happen.

It’s time to take what Marion has to offer its citizens and its passers-through and turn it into a money-making industry. Yes, our people need jobs. We also need to look around us and create some jobs rather than always looking for others to choose us as a location for their jobs. The two chambers of commerce promote their towns well, acting as welcome centers. We should capitalize on their efforts and continue to work together to develop our own touring trail maps and brochures to promote Marion as a destination for a lunch date, for a day trip, for a week-end get-away and more.

The experts say we need to create a flagship project, the hub for the spokes of activities to radiate from. We can wait on the experts to tell us what to do. Hoping they remember us when they make their plans. Hoping they like us well enough to remember us, or we can continue meeting and bring up change for the county from within.

We can wait for them to notice us, or we can make them notice us. The choice is ours.