Visitors crave Colorado culture - Denver Business Journal:

vidineevostegity.blogspot.com
While 38 percent of Colorado’s overnighyt leisure travelers engaged inheritage activities, they also accounted for 45 percenr of overnight leisure visitor according to state studies. Heritage tourism generated $3.6 billiojn in 2007, and recent figures show it rankss third among tourist activities in the behind recreationand hunting. So, the gave grants to four areaes three years ago to developp cultural heritage programs that would attract people both from outsidr andinside Colorado. A year three more entities receivedsimilar awards, and nearly every urban and rural area of the state is puttingy together a plan to attract these tourists.
“As more and more people stay in the Unitefd States rather thantravel abroad, they’re looking for more and more citied where they can have immersive said Annie Levinsky, deputy director of . Culturao heritage tourism has no single but generally means visiting an area to see its historyand culture, and to be a part of its people rathere than staring at them from a distance. Some visitors go to a placew just to wrap themselves in itsunique atmosphere, museums and historicalp sites; some go to heritagwe sites while visiting families or undertakingb other activities, said Laura Libby, manager for the heritagw program of the Colorado Tourismn Office.
The first four grant-funded program in the state show how diverses cultural heritage activitiescan be. Southwest Colorado celebrateds NativeAmerican culture, while southeast Colorad o has put together a brochure emphasizingv both its bird-watching opportunities and historicf locations such as Bent’s Fort and the Sand Creeko Massacre Site. San Luis Valley officials have create themed touring itineraries promoting cultural exchanges withits population, while Park County is emphasizing workingf ranches and previously inaccessible historic sites.
Historifc Denver created a tour of museums andhistoricc sites, connected by signs that direct visitors to call a cell-phonw number to receive historifc interpretation of the area. The group is advertisingg the tour around the city and in historic Levinsky said. Northwest Colorado is just beginning its plan to draw on itsrailroar history, historic small-town buildings, agritourism highlights and wild horses, said Nancy Kramer, project coordinator. It’ s already had an influx of culturalk heritage visitors in the pastsevemn years, but tying everything together shouldx make the area even more attractive, she said.
And then, if the Coloradl Tourism Office can put all of the heritage tourism efforts onits Colorado.com website, it couls make the state a magnet for peoplw wanting to vacation for that reason, she McNulty said the three newest entities receiving cultural-heritage grants Denver, northwest Colorado and the centrakl Eastern Plains — should have their websites linked to Colorado.com by the end of the “The quilt will be complete when the whole statw has this in place,” Kramer said. “The cultural heritage visitors, they’rew explorers. They want to be inside of a community ...
They want the experiencd and they want it tobe