|
St. Stephen ventures into tourism development
By Lindsay Street
Staff Writer
Standing on Main Street in St. Stephen one hot Friday in July, Deb Palmer and Libba Carroll looked across the railroad tracks at what was once the Masonic lodge and which is now a brick shell blackened by a recent fire.
While the building is representative of what has happened to the town since Hurricane Hugo finished blowing the timber industry out of the area, town officials are undeterred as they try to bolster economic development.
To do this, the town of 1,700 is looking to tourism as its salvation.
After years of grant hunting, St. Stephen received a $100,000 grant from the state to renovate a former hotel. The money will turn the building into a bed and breakfast to serve potential tourism in the town.
The hotel, located on Main Street, is actually the kick off for revitalization of the town, said Carroll, the town’s chairwoman of the Historical and Cultural Affairs group.
“We’re trying to build up the tourist industry and we need a bed and breakfast here,” she said.
The old Keller Hotel also is in disrepair. It is hidden behind road-front trees and is shedding its paint like a snake sheds its skin.
In the 1920s, the Keller Hotel was built to accommodate merchants from across the state who would visit to buy turpentine, wood products and produce. Over time commerce slowed, and the Keller Hotel became a family home.
A few years ago, the Keller family gave the former hotel to the town at the urging of the St. Stephen Historical and Cultural Affairs group.
Detouring travelers
A recent traffic study showed that nearly 7,800 vehicles pass the St. Stephen stoplight on U.S. Highway 52 daily.
“All we got to do now is get them to take a detour,” said Palmer, who owns an antique shop on Main Street. “I believe (revitalization is) going to happen.”
One piece of history Carroll feels should help accomplish this is that St. Stephen was home to Francis Marion, the famed Swamp Fox, for 26 years.
But tourism development in rural towns may be more difficult than residents and town officials of St. Stephen realize.
“It can fail, and when it fails, it fails spectacularly,” said Wayne Smith, assistant professor with the College of Charleston’s Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Smith, a native Canadian, is well versed in rural tourism development.
Many rural towns, faced with extinction from poverty, have turned to tourism to save the local economy.
“They think of tourism as the holy grail,” Smith said. “(But) it’s not an easy industry.”
To be successful, a town must identify an iconic feature, such as the Eiffel Tower or Rainbow Row, he said.
“The one thing we always look for in developing: What is that one thing that people have to see?” Smith said.
The feature needs to be well developed and the focus of the town, Smith added.
Building on recreation, history
Clemson University made an assessment on building tourism in the town of St. Stephen several years ago. Carroll said the report labeled two features of St. Stephen capable of driving tourism: recreation and history.
As a recreation destination, the area surrounding St. Stephen offers bird watching, hunting and fishing.
In 1992, St. Stephen kicked off the annual Catfish Festival. The festival draws nearly 10,000 people to the town—all of whom have no place to eat, except at the festival, Bojangles or Subway, and no place to stay, except at the 50-room Econolodge, Carroll said.
And there are no campsites for the recreation tourist either.
Restaurant and hotel “leakage,” or loss of visitors to hotels and restaurants in nearby towns, is one of the reasons why some tourism developments fail to revitalize small towns, Smith said. The event also does not charge an admission price and the vendors benefit mostly from festival goers, Carroll said.
To help curb leakage, the first floor of the Keller Hotel will be turned into a restaurant to serve the town’s need.
Having proper superstructure, or amenities for tourists such as restaurants and hotels, keeps tourism dollars in the town, Smith said.
Since recreational tourism has not electrified the St. Stephen economy, town officials are working on developing historical aspects of the town while also building the town’s superstructure, Carroll said.
“History and art are the two things that can be done really, really well or really, really poorly,” Smith said. “You can’t just build it and they will come. You have to really know what your products are all about and sell it to the consumer.”
Due to St. Stephen’s rural nature and history, most tourists drawn there will likely be from the Southeast, Smith said.
St. Stephen cannot compete with Charleston or Myrtle Beach, and the town should focus on becoming a stop on the route. Both cities are “drive destinations” and that bodes well for towns along the road, Smith said.
The town officials also must garner community support to implement a tourism development plan, he said.
Oftentimes, implementing a tourism development plan means spending money the town does not have, but, with a developed concept, officials can succeed in jumpstarting an ailing economy, Smith said.
“You got to get it right the first time,” Smith said. “You can’t learn on the job with it.”
Following the Swamp Fox
To make sure the town succeeds, St. Stephen will join a network of towns dedicated to the life of Francis Marion, Carroll said.
In 2005, the state created the Francis Marion Trail Commission. The commission started compiling archeological evidence to piece together the history of Marion across 13 South Carolina counties.
“St. Stephen will definitely be one of the cities with an interpretive center,” said Bob Barrett, executive director of the Francis Marion Trail Commission. “It’s one of the few (locations) we’ve actually listed that we already know will be on the trail.”
The commission has three purposes: clarify history and protect sites, educate the public and stimulate tourism for rural towns, Barrett said.
The trail will have four main entry points leading to interior locations. St. Stephen will be one of the more significant interior locations, Barrett said.
Tourism Development International, an Irish tourism development company that spearheaded the state’s tourism plan, will consult the commission, Barrett said.
“The success in the long term will depend on (the ability of) these 13 counties to pull and work together,” Barrett said.
Lindsay Street is an editorial assistant with the Business Journal. E-mail her at lstreet@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version