Montana Tourism & Recreation Industry’s Five-Year

Strategic Plan Final Draft Available Electronically for Public Comment

Contact:   Betsy Baumgart
Montana Promotion Division
406) 841-2870

Helena, MT-October 18, 2002 – The Montana Tourism and Recreation Strategic Plan 2003-2007 is available electronically for public viewing and comment on the Montana Commerce Department’s Travel Montana Intranet site: http://travelmontana.state.mt.us. Public comments will be collected through October and then the plan will be put into final form and available in both hard copy and electronic format. Final endorsement of the plan by its 75-plus stakeholders will follow the public comment period. This is the tourism and recreation industry’s third five-year strategic plan.

The 2003-2007 strategic plan contains 22 objectives and 94 actions for implementation over the five-year period. The plan document not only lists the agencies and organizations responsible for implementing the objectives and actions, but it contains useful information regarding Montana’s tourism and recreation opportunities, challenges, target markets, and resources for funding and technical assistance. For example:

• The plan highlights the opportunity for creating stronger links between Montana’s agriculture and tourism/recreation activities by pointing out that Montana’s visitors ate over 110 million meals while visiting the state. Getting more Montana food products into Montana’s restaurants and stores provides a value-added opportunity for agriculture and benefits for visitors and the state’s tourism and recreation industry.
• The plan also points out that while Montana is outspent on tourism promotion by many other states and nations, the state does have a competitive advantage in a number of areas: un-crowded, wide open spaces; outstanding historical attractions and residents who love to share the state’s history; casual but classy cultural & urban amenities; clean air and water; abundant wildlife, just to name a few.

“The new strategic plan will help guide Montana’s tourism and recreation development in a way that is acceptable to our citizen’s values, and beneficial to the state’s economy and businesses,” said Betsy Baumgart, Administrator, Montana Promotion Division. “I believe the input that was sought for this plan has well surpassed our expectations of private and public citizen involvement. We received feedback from some entities not traditionally identified with the tourism/recreation industry.”

The strategic planning process began in Fall 2002 with a series of public meetings across Montana. The plan contractor, The Hingston Roach Group, took this public meeting input and combined it with comments and ideas received throughout the year from stakeholder groups and individuals from a wide variety of social and economic interests. This outreach resulted in the development of the plan’s vision statement, goals and objectives. In total, over 1,000 Montanans have participated in the development of the plan to date. The crafting of the document involved the Montana Department of Commerce, the state’s six tourism regions and ten Convention and Visitor Bureaus, Montana Tribal Tourism Alliance, state and federal agencies, university personnel, representatives from the tourism industry, economic and community development organizations, arts and cultural entities, agricultural interests, sportsmen’s organizations and conservation groups.

Some of the key objectives of the Plan:

• Tourism must be sustainable, and consistent with the values of Montanans: access to public/private lands and waters, maintenance of natural/historic/cultural assets and infrastructure are key issues to address.
• Maintain and enhance Montana’s transportation system: ground, air, and rail.
• Highly targeted, strategic promotion is needed to maintain competitiveness. Packaging is needed to make Montana easier for visitors to plan and purchase vacations.
• Partnerships are critical to the success of Montana’s tourism & recreation efforts.
• Stronger links between value-added agriculture and tourism.

Baumgart explains that once the plan is endorsed, a series of regional meetings will be held to bring all of the tourism and recreation stakeholders together to identify and delegate the action plans.  Implementation of the plan will begin in January 2003.

Tourism is Montana’s second largest industry. Montana hosted 9.55 million nonresidents in 2001. These visitors spent $1.6 billion during their stay.

The public is encouraged to view and comment on the final draft plan on Travel Montana’s Internet site: www.travelmontana.state.mt.us.

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