Tourism advice from the Ozarks

Last month, I was lucky enough to attend a conference at Osage Beach, at Tan-Tar-A Resort no less, which sits directly on the banks of the wonderfully scenic Lake of the Ozarks. The focus of the two-day event was to give advice to small-town community leaders on how to capitalize on living in rural Missouri.

There was a roster of nationally acclaimed experts, who weighed in on the future and fortunes of Missouri. The conference -- sponsored by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines -- was designed to introduce local leaders and community bankers to new models for everything from economic development to capital formation.

The headliner was Ben Stein, the comedian, lawyer, actor, professor and finance guru best known for his nerdy role in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and as host of Comedy Central's now defunct "Win Ben Stein's Money."

Stein was funny, but the surprise of the event for me came as I was sitting in a lecture by Jack Schultz, author of "Boomtown USA: The 7 1/2 Keys to Big Success in Small Towns."

I thought I would sit and learn ways that smaller communities like ours could better capitalize on its rural status and draw in people from the larger metropolitan areas.

Instead, I learned that Cape Girardeau was already doing something right. As I reported in a story in the Southeast Missourian, one of the slides that Schultz showed -- on things communities can do right -- was a slide about Cape Girardeau.

Schultz spoke about building relationships and how important that is. Specifically, he said, Cape Girardeau has done a wonderful job of building a relationship with Southeast Missouri State University.

Too often, Schultz said, different community leaders and organizations let ego get in the way of working together. That's not the case in Cape Girardeau, he said.

Working together on projects like the university's River Campus, the Show Me Center and on revitalizing downtown is the only way that small-town America will make significant strides, he said. Schultz had even dedicated a chapter of his book on Cape Girardeau. It was nice to hear such praise heaped upon our community and its leaders.

Here are some other tourism tips I gleaned from the conference:

• Home grown talent. Instead of focusing all the energy on luring in a 1,000-job plant, for example, why not use "home-grown" talent of people already in the community and make it easier for them to become entrepreneurs.
• Cross promotion. Restaurants, hotels and entertainment venues could work together to promote themselves and each other. If someone comes for one of them, they usually partake of all.
• Don't ignore the "frills." One speaker said that in many small towns, community leaders see things like trails and the arts as frills. They're not.
• Don't dwell on the weaknesses. Many small towns fret over why people won't come. Find a reason for them to. I think Cape Girardeau is on the right track as it begins to remember the river.
• Embrace the 'Net. Small towns also need to embrace new technologies, like the Internet. With the help of an Internet connection and a computer, small-town business can gain access to millions of customers. Businesses should be listing their inventories on innovative Web sites, for example.

I'm not saying that Cape Girardeau and the surrounding communities aren't already using some of these tools. But there's always room for improvement. That's a sentiment I'm sure all of our economic development and tourism officials would agree with.

Scott Moyers is editor of Business Today.