TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface...... 2
Current Situation...... 2
Organizational Description...... 2
NEWSTART Mission...... 3
NEWSTART Vision...... 3
Recreation and Tourism Niche (Marketing Tagline)...... 4
Landscape Description...... 4
Supply and Demand Analysis...... 5
Supply...... 5
Demand...... 8
Stakeholders Expressing Interest in Sustainable Recreation and Tourism...... 10
Strategic Issues and Strengths...... 11
Recommended Strategies...... 14
Strategic Goals, Objectives, and Actions...... 14
Monitoring Overview...... 18
Economic Sustainability...... 18
Social Sustainability...... 19
Environmental Sustainability...... 19
PREFACE
This Recreation and Tourism Strategy was developed as a result of public input at stakeholder discussions, focus groups, and a Northeast Washington Recreation and Tourism Vision Workshop, as well as dialogue within the ad hoc Northeast Washington Sustainable Tourism and Recreation Team; it will be revised based on continued public review and input. It is available for free, in whole or part, to any stakeholder who maintains an interest in sustainable recreation and tourism in Northeast Washington.
It is important to point out that this Strategy is a working document and will evolve as part of an ongoing strategic planning process. The objectives and actions outlined below are intended as ideas to be reviewed over the coming one to five years for feasibility of funding and implementation, shifts in the industry, and determination of critical annual needs.
If employed with dedication and in the true spirit of collaboration, this Strategy will guide Northeast Washington toward a state of economic, social, and environmental sustainability. As a result, communities across the tri-county area will become more vibrantas they diversify and build upon their traditional resource-based economies to allow for parallel growth in the recreation and tourism industry. Thus, if you are interested in Northeast Washington’s recreation and tourism industry, we encourage your participation in this strategic process – this is an investment in your future.
CURRENT SITUATION
Organizational Description
The Northeast Washington Sustainable Tourism and Recreation Team (NEWSTART), an informal group of interested stakeholders,came togetherto enhance Northeast Washington’s communities, economy, and environmentthrough the integration and promotion of recreation and tourism opportunities across Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Stevens Counties. The diverse stakeholders participating in this effort include federal and state land management agencies, chambers of commerce, the Kalispel Tribe, local economic development entities, tourism organizations, and the public. Each of these parties takes great pride in the region’s unique historical, cultural, and physical landscapes.
Members of NEWSTART have been collaborating on an ad hoc basis since early 2009, and have engaged the citizens of the tri-county area through numerous meetings, workshops, and discussions. These stakeholder interactions culminated in the April 10, 2010 Vision Workshop, which ultimately led to the development of NEWSTART’sMission, Vision, and this Recreation and Tourism Strategy for Northeast Washington. As NEWSTARTcontinues to work toward its goals and celebrate its successes, it welcomes the public and any other interested parties to join its efforts to achieve a state of economic, social, and environmental sustainability for Northeast Washington.
NEWSTART Mission
To partner with communities, local businesses, and federal and state land management agencies; engage user groups; and market recreation and tourism opportunities to provide for better economic, social, and environmental futures for Northeast Washington.
This Mission describes the fundamental purpose of our working together, and offers a foundation for the Vision.
NEWSTART Vision
Sustainable recreation and tourism provide Northeast Washington’s citizens with benefits such as economic improvement; unique, high quality recreation and travel opportunities; and a means to preserve the traditional qualities of their communities and cultures for future generations.
Local residents and visitors encounter an accessible frontier region steeped in Tribal and Western heritage, a sense of high adventure, and diverse family-friendly opportunities. An unparalleled system of scenic routes allows long-distance travelers to hike, ride, slide, or fly across a pristine landscape and its water bodies. Besides being one-of-a-kind destinations, these travelways connect people to Northeast Washington’s celebrated wildlife, cultures, geology, history, arts, and agricultural assets.
This Vision is an inspirational picture of what the tri-county area might look like in the future. It is geared toward an internal audience, and sets a broad coursefor the group’s strategic planning. The Vision is rooted in seven themes, which came from the public via numerous stakeholder interactions, workshops, and meetings; these themes include adventure, heritage, arts, wildlife, family, agritourism, and stewardship.
Recreation and Tourism Niche(Marketing Tagline)
“Washington’s Wild Side: everything but the crowds!”
Landscape Description
Northeast Washington is composed of Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Stevens Counties. The eastern part of the tri-county area gives rise to the foothills of the Rockies. To the west lies the last wild reach of the mighty ColumbiaRiver and an ‘Old West’ charm. The region’s productive forests, splashed in autumn with the brilliant yellow of the Larch, appear from a distance as a thick fur on its hills and peaks.The fertile bottomlands, where meandering rivers have deposited rich alluvial soils, support the tri-county area’s communities and tradition of local agriculture.
Northeast Washington has an unparalleled, diverse system of travelways. The Pend Oreille River and Lake Roosevelt allow for extensive travel and discovery by watercraft. The Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail provides a route for hikers, bikers, and equestrians to traverse the wildest corners of these three counties. Long-distance trail systems link communities by OHV, snowmobile, and foot, as well as by other modes of riding and sliding.[1] A myriad of byways and other scenic drives connect Northeast Washington’s towns and Tribes to Spokane, Idaho, British Columbia, and places still further afield. There are also many additional undiscovered pathways by which to experience, explore, and adventure across Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Stevens Counties.
While Northeast Washington’s landscape lends itself toa unique diversity of tourism and recreation experiences, it remains comparatively undeveloped and unknown. In part, this relative anonymityis due to lacking infrastructure and an absence of integrated activity itineraries to accommodate visitors.Yet, the rustic, undiscovered character of the tri-county area also strongly contributes to its charm.Amore coordinated effort to responsibly improve marketing, infrastructure, and travelway connections, then, will help tointegratethese landscape-level assets with the region’s abundance of wildlife, culture, geology, history, arts, and food. Ultimately, such efforts will empower residents and visitors alike as stewards of Northeast Washington’s community, cultural, and natural wealth.
Supply and Demand Analysis
Supply
There are a number of ways by which we can begin to ascertain the supply of recreation and tourism opportunities and assets in Northeast Washington. One means to measure supply is to inventory Northeast Washington’s public lands, where both locals and tourists can recreate. Public lands that accommodate recreation and tourism in the tri-county area include:
- Colville National Forest: 1.1 million acres
- Washington State Department of Natural Resources Northeast Region: 567,000 acres
- Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area: 100,000 acres
- Little Pend Oreille Wildlife Refuge: 41,600 acres
- Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife: 10,000 acres
- Curlew State Park: 123 acres
- Crawford State Park: 49 acres
- Pend Oreille County Park
- Bureau of Land Management (numerous sites southwest of Spokane)
Together, these State and Federal lands offer a wide breadth of high-quality recreation and tourism opportunities across an area of more than 1.8 million acres.
Second, the number of recreation- and tourism-focused businesses offers insights into the supply of assets that are of interest to NEWSTART. According to Northeast Washington Trends data, Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Stevens Counties were home to 136 food service and accommodation businesses in 2007. Measured as an indicator, 96 out of every 1,000 businesses in 2007 in the tri-county area were accommodation and food service establishments. For comparison, Washington State had only 87 accommodation and food service establishments per 1,000 businesses in the same year. Arts related businesses are also important in measuring the supply of recreation and tourism assets. In 2007, the tri-county was home to 6 arts related businesses, which represented 4.2 out of every 1,000 business. In the same year, Washington State had 8.6 arts related establishments per 1,000 businesses, which suggests that the arts are under-supplied in the tri-county area.[2]
A third way to measure supply of recreation and tourism opportunities is to count the number of scenic byways and routes. The tri-county area is traversed by the:
- International Selkirk Loop (with the Tiger-Colville-Flowery Trail Super Side Loop)
- North Pend Oreille Scenic Byway
- Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail
- Sherman Pass Scenic Byway
These scenic byways and trails are selected for their status as national and state treasures. In addition to the above ‘paths’, recognized and designated by Congress, the US Department of Transportation, and Washington State, a number of other highly scenic and significant routes exist. For instance, the Northern Tier Bicycle Route, from Anacortes, WA to Bar Harbor, Maine, traverses Northeast Washington via Highway 20. Together, these designated and informal routes offer rich insights into the heritage and history of the tri-county area, and lead travelers to stunning scenic vistas. They also serve as pleasant connections for both residents and visitors to the tri-county area’s recreational opportunities and sense of high adventure.
To highlight that the climate in the tri-county area encourages four-season travel, tourism, and recreation, we also must not overlook that Northeast Washington is home to 49 Degrees North, a destination ski area. There are also a network of groomed snowmobile trails that together total over 400 miles in length, numerous groomed cross-country ski trails, and several areas for backcountry skiing, snowshoeing, and general snow play.
Finally, the Creative Vitality Index is an ongoing measure by the Washington State Arts Commission of the health of the creative economy in different parts of the State; this index illustrates the state, or supply, of arts and cultural assets. It includes data on both for-profit and nonprofit arts enterprises, and arts occupations. While there is no specific measure for the tri-county area, Eastern Washington (excluding Spokane County) was assigned a value of 0.89 in 2007. For comparison, the baseline, or national, value is 1.0, and the 2007 value for Washington State as a whole was 1.32.[3] This indicates that arts and culture may be a growth industry for the region.
Demand[4]
According to figures for direct tourism and travel spending in the tri-county area, which increased by 32% between 2001 and 2008, overall demand for recreation and tourism in Northeast Washington is increasing. These data are corroborated by the figures for total tourism and travel expenditures by campers in the tri-county area, which increased by 57% between 1991 and 2008. Aside from examining spending associated with recreation and tourism, the remaining data that we have to measure recreation and tourism demand in the tri-county area is relatively fragmented. Yet, that available data still offer insights into what local residents and visitors to the tri-county area value, and suggest at trends as these values change.
The data that are available to measure demand for recreation and tourism assets in Northeast Washington are as follows:
- Between 1999 and 2009, 60,000 to 380,000 visits were made to Crawford and Curlew State parks each year.
- Between 2005 and 2009, 50,000 to 63,000 visits were made to the Little Pend Oreille Wildlife Refuge.
- In 2009, approximately 362,000 visits were made to the Colville National Forest.
- Between 1999 and 2009, 45,000 to 67,000 boats were launched at the Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (on NPS boat ramps only).
- Between 2001 and 2009, 135 to 150 hunting licenses were sold annually per 1,000 people in the tri-county area; in Washington State over the same time period, approximately 50 licenses were sold annually per 1,000 people. As the tri-county area is highly popular for hunting, we might also assume that many licenses purchased elsewhere were used in Northeast Washington.
- Between 2003 and 2009, 220 to 240 fishinglicenses were sold annually per 1,000 people in the tri-county area; in Washington State over the same time period, 160 to 200 licenses were sold annually per 1,000 people.
- Between 1998 and 2009, 270,000 to 650,000 visits were made to Inland Northwest Ski Resorts.[5]The mean number of annual visits to these ski areas over this periodwas 475,000.
- In 2009, the six most popular activities on the Colville National Forest (in order of importance) were: viewing natural features, hiking/walking, relaxing, downhill skiing, driving for pleasure, and viewing wildlife.
Stakeholders Expressing Interest in Sustainable Recreation and Tourism
Chambers of Commerce
Cities
Colville National Forest (USFS)
Counties
Forty Nine Degrees North
Heritage Network
Hospitality Industry
Kalispel Tribe
Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area (NPS)
Large Private Landowners and Managers
Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge (FWS)
Outfitters and Guides
Pend Oreille EDC
Pend Oreille River Tourism Alliance
Recreation User Groups
Stevens County Tourism
Tri-County Economic Development District
Visit Stevens
Visitors Bureaus
Washington State Department of Natural Resources
Washington State Parks
WSU Extension
Strategic Issues and Strengths
One challenge inNEWSTART’s effort to use recreation and tourism to bring jobs and capital into Northeast Washington’s communities, while continuing to care forits cultures and environment, is a history of failed startsin collaboration across Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Stevens Counties. Twice in the past, efforts at the formation of an official recreation and tourism organization have stalled, largely due to uncertainty about funding and complacency on the part of participants and stakeholders. One result of these unsuccessful attempts at inter-county organization is that the individuals who envision a future that balances economic prosperity with social and environmental stewardship in Northeast Washington have alreadygiven much, and are at risk of fatigue as they move forward with their current efforts.
A second challenge NEWSTART faces is that not all of the critical stakeholders with an interest in recreation and tourism, rural economic development, and community and environmental sustainability are at the table, at least initially. In particular, the hospitality industry, organized recreation groups, political representatives, and both the Colville and Spokane Tribes have not been deeply involved with NEWSTART at the time of drafting of this Recreation and Tourism Strategy. These absences, if sustained, will render the accomplishment ofpositive changes to the tourism and recreation infrastructure more difficult, and will also ensure patchier economic, social, and environmental benefits.
Lastly, Northeast Washington is home to a polarized recreation community. Many perceive an incompatibility between motorized use and quieter modes of recreation such as hiking, cross-country skiing, and wildlife watching. Conflicts also exist between ATV (4-wheeler) and motorcycle (single track) riders, as well as between other types of users. And, while not directly a recreation issue and is thus not of particular interest to NEWSTART, proposals for Wilderness designation often create division among recreation groups. Yet, it is precisely the positive coexistence and collaboration between these various recreation communities that will allow for the development of a world-class network of adventure opportunities and economic, social, and environmental benefits.
Fortunately, these strategic issues are balanced by virtue of NEWSTART’s strengths as an ad hoc organization of interested parties. For many stakeholders involved, the recent activities of this group represent a success and collaboration milestone. Participants have developed rapport with one another, which renders complacency, a contributor to failure in the past, unlikely. The talent and diversity of the stakeholderswho envision a better future for Northeast Washingtoncreate a reality of stability and strength, as they each bring energy and unique skills to this undertaking of an economic, social, and environmental renewal of Northeast Washington through an emphasis on recreation and tourism.
Improved communication over the tri-county area has already facilitated a great deal of mutual learning and will result in a more efficient delivery of recreation and tourism programs. Further, the parties at the table recognize the great value of economic, social, and environmental benefits to be gained through the success of this effort. While not necessarily wholly tangible, this deep passion and commitment to bettering the communities, economy, landscape, and adventure of Northeast Washington should not be discounted.
Finally, the recreation and tourism industry in Northeast Washington is growing, and thus contributes to a more diverse local economy. Total tourism and travel spending by campers in the tri-county area increased by 57% between 1991 and 2008. Similarly, direct tourism and travel spending in the tri-county area increased by 32% between 2001 and 2008. Put most simply, these data suggest that NEWSTART is well positioned to facilitate even greater growth in Northeast Washington’s recreation and tourism industry. NEWSTART’s niche in a growth industry, and its expected contributions to this growth, should help to draw more and more participation from recreation and tourism stakeholders, and from the public.