Spotlight
Summer 2007 Back to Spotlight home page
WOW! The sensation of discovery: faculty research and creativity
Click above to hear Dr. Smith being interviewed by WOSU News in Columbus, Ohio for a story on experiential tourism.
By William Smith
My recent research program on tourism as a tool for entrepreneurship and economic development in the Kansas Flint Hills has been a very interesting trip. It all began on the evening of July 14, 2004, at the American Legion Hall, here in Emporia. The Kansas Department of Commerce, Travel and Tourism Division (TTD), sponsored a program on agritourism including a number of guests from around the country. About 75-100 people attended and the meeting went well beyond the prescribed time allotted because of the high energy in the room based on the enthusiastic responses to the stories the guests had to share. Remelle Farrar, from Canadian, Texas, told how her community had benefited from using tourism, agritourism in particular, to improve its economy and add jobs. Ted Eubanks, with Fermata, Inc. (Fermata), who had worked with Remelle and others expanded on the story. Some others told complementary stories, and Scott Allegrucci, Director of the TTD, suggested we could do the same kind of things in the Kansas Flint Hills, and the TTD wanted to help. The TTD hired Fermata, Inc. to support this effort.
From this meeting and subsequent meetings, including a series of meetings with Ted Eubanks and at another with Remelle Farrar, I became quite interested in the concept of experiential tourism, did an extensive literature review, and wrote a research paper about it that was subsequently published in an academic journal.
Many of these meetings were sponsored by the local nine-county Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Council in one way or another. The RC&D has, during this time, developed an Agritourism Initiative to promote agritourism services offerings by local farmers and ranchers. I was asked to serve on the executive committee of this group and have worked with them closely. We have obtained an RBEG federal grant to support a person to work with farmers and ranchers one-on-one in developing additional business opportunities using their current assets. That grant is currently being extended. ESU has hosted several workshops in conjunction with this initiative. Using a database of local farmers and ranchers expressing interest in possibly providing tourism based services, I conducted a survey, based on the standards that came out of the earlier paper I published, seeking their reactions to the experiential tourism standards the paper proposed. I was subsequently able to get a second academic research paper published based on the results of this survey.
In the summer of 2005, a group of convention and visitor bureau and economic development directors in the Kansas Flint Hills region began to meet to consider working more closely as a region in marketing and promoting the Flint Hills region. With the encouragement of the TTD, now headed by Becky Blake, the 22-county Flint Hills Tourism Coalition was formed. As it became a functioning group, meeting monthly in different parts of the region, Governor Sebelius designated the group to formally represent the efforts of the state to focus tourism marketing attention on the Flint Hills region as a tourism destination. In September 2005, Fermata issued the strategic planning report: “Experiential Tourism Strategy for the Kansas Flint Hills” that has guided the activities of the Flint Hills Tourism Coalition since that time.
Also in the fall of 2005, ten of our MBA students here in the School of Business had an elective class cancelled, just as they were completing their program. I agreed to take them on and created a special class I called “Entrepreneurship through Agritourism.” Working from a combination of my own background research, the Fermata report (and others they had already done around the country), and the enthusiasm of the students for a new and very “real-world” topic the class was very successful on several levels. The international students in the class were especially fascinated by the entire concept. The students visited the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve as a group, and enjoyed it very much. Several students, in groups of twos, took on “consulting” opportunities with actual producers – a vineyard, and bed and breakfast, etc. Finally, a core group, with assistance from several others, created a web site promoting the Kansas Flint Hills, using information from the Fermata report and their own research. One of the students was the ESU School of Business webmaster, Allen Walker. Subsequently, Allen and I have continued to develop the website (he the technical side, I have worked on content, photos, etc.) and it has now been adopted as the official website of the Flint Hills Tourism Coalition.
The Flint Hills Tourism Coalition, working with Fermata under a state contract, developed a logo, tagline, and themes that may be used to move forward with a Heritage Area designation and are the basis for a brochure that has been widely distributed. They also worked with the Kansas Lottery for a very successful Flint Hills lottery game, which was a fund raiser for the Coalition. The Coalition supported the national designation of the Flint Hills Scenic Byway and is working toward development of visitor centers in the Flint Hills. They are working closely with the Kansas Department of Transportation and the TTD to install four large limestone monuments on the Interstates, I-70 and I-35, to “announce” the Flint Hills, using the Coalition logo. In cooperation with the Coalition, the RC&D and Small Business Development Center, the ESU School of Business Center for Business and Economic Development is hosting, during 2007, a series of Monthly Training Workshops providing technical assistance to residents of the Kansas Flint Hills on a variety of topics, from grants and oral histories, to creating new authentic Flint Hills products and services.
I have been able to weave my work with tourism as a tool of entrepreneurship and economic development together with my own teaching, research and service very effectively, I believe. I feel very fortunate to be able to do this, both for my students and my community. Most recently, I was elected Chair of the 22-county Flint Hills Tourism Coalition. This gives me additional opportunities to contribute to the region and to recognition of the ESU School of Business.
Links
Flint Hills Tourism Coalition: http://www.kansasflinthills.travel/
ESU's Center for Business and Economic Development at the School of Business -
- Center's workshops, past and future
Last Updated July 16, 2007