Civic Tourism

At the recent Susquehanna River Symposium I had the pleasure to spend time with Dan Shilling, author of the book Civic Tourism. This is an important concept that we have been enploying in our interpretive planning for the Susquehanna Greenway (all 500miles of it). His book focuses on being sure to develop tourism opportunities with community involvement, support and implementation. "Civic Tourism is an extension of and tool for other "place-based" approaches, such as cultural heritage tourism, ecotourism, and geotourism. The mission of Civic Tourism is to "reframe" tourism's purpose – from an end to a means; that is, from an economic goal to a tool that can help the public enhance what they love about their place. I found the several days of chatting with Dan, both formally and informally, beneficial and stimulating, and can certainly recommend his book "Civic Tourism - the Poetry and Policics of Place". You can order it from Dan's web site at: http://civictourism.org/