Don Steele's blog: Expert tourism leader reviews Dodge City Master Tourism Plan

There is no one more expert in tourism for Dodge City than Don Steele. His years of building the Depot Theater company (nee, Boot Hill Repertory Company), and the massive amount of work he planned and pushed over a decade to get the millions of dollars for the renovation of the Santa Fe Depot has no equal in our area -- perhaps the state.

His view of the new Dodge City/Ford County Master Tourism Plan, from Herberling Associates Inc., has to be taken very seriously -- or at least by those that know what has worked. Here's his May 6th blog on the Master Tourism Study:

A shaky plan

So the Tourism Master Plan has been released, and National Tourism Week is coming up soon. Time to step back and look at the state of the tourism industry in Dodge City.
The world in financial crisis, gas prices on the rise again, and now a potential pandemic that has health officials threatening to close the borders and outlaw travel — not the best time to hope for better business at local attractions.
The Master Plan was an idea that had been bandied about for years but nobody could agree on what agency should write it or what it should contain.
In my view, the plan should address everything from redesigning the traffic flow around town to creating a "war chest" and going out in aggressive search of new television, movie and book projects that are set in Dodge City. Disappointingly, the current plan is much more limited in scope...

Please read the rest -- and hope that Don keeps helping us solve our tourism problems. He is the best.