PTFF members present: Donna Fichtner, Roger Merchant, Sophie Wilson, Patrick Myers, Mike Turcotte, Mike Henderson, Jack Clukey, Dennis Lyford, John Simko

Also Present: Judy MacKinney

Welcome to all. There are several other tourism related things percolating around the area. They include:

• Work going on regarding increasing opportunities for dog-sledding in the area.
• The Share Your Heritage workshop and pre-meeting. The Share Your Heritage workshop's goal is to develop Heritage Tourism itineraries for the area. This is important work that everyone is encouraged to participate in.

Discussion then turned towards the responses received from the Advisory Board on the "homework assignment" from the May third meeting. The comments and responses were thoughtful and the PTTF appreciates the time taken to complete them. Items discussed in general included:

• The possible benefits of passenger train service
• A regional craft center
• Lack of central tourist information and signage
• The nostalgia value of small towns
• The fear of tourism

A more detailed discussion centered on the need to promote the area to professional travel writers. Substantial benefits have come from efforts to bring travel writers into the area to write articles. There are efforts currently underway by the AMC and others along these lines. The PTTF blueprint needs to address ways to implement this county-wide.

Discussion shifted to the idea that we cannot rely on the state for help. Businesses need to know where to go to access financial assistance and help with marketing. The PTTF talked about the way that marketing and infrastructure are inter-related. A business needs to have the infrastructure to deal with increased traffic before the marketing can commence, but the increased traffic is needed to pay for the improved infrastructure. There is marketing money currently available, but tourism economic development needs to take place at the local level.

The PTTF's Blueprint should deal with tourism support for businesses. Pine Tree zones need to be customized to this area. Access to funding needs to be improved and clarified. Between PCEDC, Cooperative Extension, the Incubator Without Walls, Career Center and others there are potential business assistance assets that need to be bundled together.

Business investment comes down to access to capital and the quality of business plans. Marketing information is available for use in business plans, but businesses need direction on where to go for this information, how to put it into a business plan, and where to go once the plan is complete.

Roger merchant summed up this portion of the discussion by saying that by year-end the Blueprint needs to develop the reality of tourism business assistance. Not only accessing the information, but what kind of tracking system do we need to have in place to understand what is happening and where opportunities exist. There are potential new tourism opportunities that directly relate to business opportunities. One simple tool from the Maine Office of Tourism tracks enquiries made on their website. This shows what people are interested in doing and provides clues as to where the opportunities lie.

It is essential that those people who come to the area for the first time come back. A good first impression is critical. We also have to make sure that we manage visitor's expectations. While we are in the process of improving infrastructure the visitor needs to know that there are limitations. We should focus on the opportunities we do have and look for ways to exceed the expectations.

Along with this is the necessity to educate the front-line people in stores, gas stations, etc. to know what opportunities are available in the area. This will require a major campaign to show the public and business community that tourism is important to the area. National tourism week is the 2nd week in May; perhaps we can take advantage of the resources that are available. Publicizing the number of jobs that are directly and indirectly connected to tourism might help make it "real" to the public and help to gain their support.

The PTTF then discussed the Moosehead and Katahdin trails - how they were developed, where they need improving, and the opportunities they can provide to the area. The two trails give us value and visibility that we can capitalize upon, but there needs to be a plan and a product to take to the market.

John Simko provided reading materials on improving off-season tourism through the snowmobile industry and on the idea of a Moosehead Outdoor Leadership School for the PTTF to review.

Donna Fichtner passed out information on work being done in Queen Anne's County, Maryland as well as a paper by Stephen McCool on the search for sustainable tourism. She made the point that we need to outline issues that need work and bring them to the table to work on one-by-one.

Roger Merchant concluded the meeting by saying that the PTTF needs to begin to frame out the blueprint process. We need to determine the specific categories and issues and how we blueprint these issues in a consumer friendly way. The PTTF is tasked with working on these issues for the next meeting.

Concluded 11:30