Exploring adventure tourism
HUNTSVILLE — Can Scott County attract enough adventure-seeking tourists to create new jobs?
That was the question being asked at a two-hour work session here Tuesday (Jan. 29). And at least some county officials apparently believe the answer is “yes.”
The idea being kicked around by county commissioners and other interested parties gathered at Tuesday’s meeting is to make Scott County an adventure tourism destination. Or, as County Mayor Rick Keeton put it, to “make [adventure tourism] a part of Scott County’s identity.”
Adventure tourism consists of any outdoors recreation that will attract tourists. It can include a wide variety of activities, most of which are already available in Scott County, such as hiking, four-wheeling, horseback riding, whitetwater rafting, fishing, hunting, rock climbing and more.
The thinking is that Scott County’s large tracts of undeveloped property — such as Brimstone, Capachine and Chitwood Mountain — lend to the county’s ability to become a haven for adventure tourists. And, the consensus seemed to be that while some of those properties are already owned by the state and federal governments (Royal Blue WMA and the Big South Fork NRRA) and can be used as part of a package of recreation opportunities, Scott County also needs to prevent the other large tracts of land still in private hands from being gobbled up by government entities with blank checks to write.
As urban development spreads, tourists seeking adventure are forced to travel further and to fewer places. That is especially true for off-roading enthusiasts, as off-road vehicles are rarely allowed on state- or federally-owned properties. Areas like Harlan County, Kentucky, and the Hatfield-McCoy all terrain vehicle trail system in West Virginia have paved the way for public-private agreements between local governments and private recreation-based businesses to create tourism destinations.
Locally, the potential for adventure tourism was at least partially realized by the establishment of Brimstone Recreation, which was co-founded by Huntsville businessmen Mark E. Love and Aaron Thompson to lease and manage the 45,000 acres of the Brimstone tract.
Love and Thompson were present at Tuesday’s meeting, along with County Mayor Keeton and commissioners Odeva Byrd, Ernest Phillips, Dennis Sexton, Rothel “Tub” Cross, Paul Strunk, Ron Blevins and Willie Boyatt. Also present was Brian Strunk, an engineer with Barge, Waggoner, Sumner & Cannon, the firm that will be charged with developing a grant funding plan for money that would then be used to develop a comprehensive adventure tourism plan for Scott County.
The hiring of BWSC is pending a vote before County Commission later this month. On Monday evening, the plan received initial approval by a 4-0 vote of County Commission’s Community Development Committee.
While some commissioners spoke more than others at Tuesday’s informal meeting, all present appeared to be in agreement and ready to move forward.
“I think you have a golden opportunity here in Scott County to come up with a comprehensive plan” for adventure tourism, Brian Strunk — a local native — told the commissioners. “Brimstone [Recreation] has done a great job. The question is are you willing to take that and make a public-private entity, and approach the governor?”
Among the possible avenues to be explored would be an attempt to convince Gov. Phil Bredesen to allow more local control of ATV riding on Royal Blue - Brimstone WMA, which was established with roughly half of the Brimstone tract last year.
To make adventure-based tourism a draw, investments would have to be made in the form of private businesses to accommodate tourists. Such investments would be limitless — and could include anything from campgrounds to cabin rentals to other equipment rentals — and would ultimately be what provided the tourism-based job growth.
“We’re going to have to have the insight to have people make some private investments to build up what we can do,” Keeton said. “We have to create a destination where people can come and spend four or five days and not do the same thing twice.”
Commissioner Phillips pointed out that the Windrock riding club — which leases the Coal Creek tract in Anderson County and, together with Brimstone, offers the only places in East Tennessee where off-road enthusiasts can ride ATVs for a fee — is “making money for everybody (in the surrounding communities).
“Recreation is going to be this county’s answer to lost taxes,” Phillips said. “If we don’t do this, we’ll be sitting and wondering why we didn’t do it.”
A large part of the discussion revolved around government control of lands. Strunk pointed out that Scott County is already bordered on three sides by state- or federally-owned land and said that every chunk of land added to the government coffers results in lost property tax dollars for the county.
“You don’t want to become a McCreary County (where the majority of the land base is federally-owned),” he said. “They have struggled financially for as long as I can remember.”
Commissioner Boyatt recalled riding through No Business Creek, now a part of the Big South Fork NRRA, as a kid.
“I can’t take my kids and show them No Business Creek or tell them the Jerome Boyatt story, and that’s a shame,” he said. “We’ve got to start standing up with both fists and saying ‘We aren’t going to take it anymore.’”
Commissioner Strunk, whose 5th District includes parts of the Capachine and Chitwood properties, commented that “in doing this plan, we can prove that we’re able to manage these lands responsibly.
“This is a golden opportunity for economic development,” Strunk added. “We’ve got a governor in his second term who has focused on rural areas.”
Larry Crowley, an outdoors recreation enthusiast, told commissioners that “there are very few counties that have the land to even be talking about this.”
The first step for what would likely be a years-long effort would be to identify sources of funding and determine whether the feasibility existed to go after such funding, in order to proceed forward.