Letter to the Editor: "Council making big mistake on tourism"

     The recent events surrounding Lynchburg City Council, the local tourism board and the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce nothing less than tragic for the hundreds of businesses and thousands of individuals who rely on tourism in the greater Lynchburg region for their economic viability.

     To say that the majority of council members, supporting the dissolution of the current tourism board and the discontinuance of the cities contract with the chamber, are short-sighted and have undercut the city’s ability to advertise and promote itself is an understatement. In Charlottesville and Roanoke, they are cheering the unprecedented destruction of Virginia’s most honored and awarded tourism program, and these cities are looking to capitalize on Lynchburg’s mistake.

     Whatever the proprietary and budgetary reasons were, for City Council’s hostile takeover of tourism promotion in Lynchburg, they could not have outweighed valuable and productive work that had been accomplished by the chamber and the its staff over many years.  Irreplaceable personal contacts, award-winning programs and a highly respected reputation throughout the state have been thrown over in a coup d’état by an oligarchy comprised of politicians who have an agenda to obtain total control over decision-making regarding tourism.  For those who believe that government is best able to manage tourism rather than an outside agency, whose soul purpose is the promotion of business, I would ask, do you really think that is the best way to go? The tourism industry in Lynchburg will become yet another victim of bureaucratic tomfoolery, and it will become mired in the debate over resources and budgets, which will debilitate and stagnate economic recovery in Central Virginia.


MARK R. DAY
Lynchburg