Northern Forest Tourism Network
Collaborating to Create a World Class Destination – Join Us!Maine
Mike Wilson, Senior Program Director, Northern Forest Center, and Chair of Maine Woods Consortium Tourism Committee
mwilson@northernforest.org, 207-824-8263
In spring 2009, the Maine Woods Consortium created a new committee to help coordinate and leverage tourism development efforts across rural northern Maine. The move was catalyzed by an opportunity to work with the Betterment Fund to help direct investment in tourism projects with the potential to create new livable wage jobs.
Projects funded in the first round of Betterment investment included: a web-based Wabanaki craft marketing initiative, a tourism package marketed as part of the Maine Woods Discovery initiative, and an effort to coordinate tourism training efforts in three Maine Woods counties – Washington, Piscataquis and Franklin. As they track the progress of these projects, Consortium members are looking for strategic leverage points to help guide future investment.
With its relationship with Betterment as a starting point, the MWC is working to combine the local knowledge of its members with a regional perspective to reduce redundancy, leverage synergies, and advance the principles of Rural Destination Tourism and a triple bottom line approach (economy, community, environment) among tourism initiatives in the Maine Woods. In addition to the investment program, the Consortium is exploring opportunities to bring coordination and increased capacity to activities ranging from nature-based tourism, to “quality labeling,” and expanded hospitality training.
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