By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Meetings took place under the general heading of the Governor's Conference on Tourism and Travel Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (February 5,6,7) in Spartanburg. The tourism action plan was detailed by international consultant Michael MacNulty and Chad Prosser, head of S.C. Parks, Recreation, and Tourism.

At an economics conference in Columbia last November, John Darby of Charleston- based Beach Company outlined the major points of the tourism action plan, but the past week in Spartanburg has seen the full disclosure and intentions.

The gathering of 500 of S.C.'s tourist industry players was staged at the Spartanburg Marriott at Renaissance Park, near the Spartanburg Auditorium. The two- year- old 247- room hotel is situated on Church Street between Wofford College and Main Street, and is owned in part by Spartanburg's Arthur Franklin Cleveland. In the mid- '50s, the two substantive hotels on Spartanburg's Main Street were the Franklin and the Cleveland.

Under the sponsorship of S.C.'s Council on Competitiveness, consultant MacNulty of Ireland-based Tourism Development International (TDI) outlined the advantages of the tourism cluster, the concept of aggregated activity attracting the tourist dollar statewide. S.C. is, as MacNulty said last November and again this week, "a flower waiting to bloom."

MacNulty's TDI held 400 meetings around the state and the resulting product last fall was a 600- page, three- volume report reviewed this week in Spartanburg. S.C.'s Council on Competitiveness has identified 14 clusters statewide for economic expansion, tourism being among them.

Tourism is S.C.'s largest industry, employing approximately 216,000 people, or more than 11% of the work force. Tourism in S.C. carries an economic impact of $14.6 billion from revenues of $10.9 billion. To go from here, to grow from here, S.C. must spend more money to make more money, to quadruple tourism's revenues statewide in less than 15 years, according to MacNulty.

Governor Sanford wants to add to last year's tourism marketing budget of $10 million, the money disbursed from state coffers. He asked for another $13.5 million for tourism advertising and promotion.

As a comparison, Ireland has about the same number of people as S.C., but Ireland spends $82 million marketing tourism to attract 7 million visitors, while S.C. spends its $10 million to pull in 17 million visitors. MacNulty's TDI recommends honoring the governor's request for additional tourism marketing money to drive S.C. tourism to revenues of $40 billion by 2020.

Calling itself "New Carolina," S.C.'s Council on Competitiveness titled its document, "New Carolina Tourism Action Plan." The plan declares, to start, the surface has barely been scratched. The challenge is to take the potential to reality.

Meanwhile, back at the starting gate, tourism is a fragmented business, too highly disjointed. State policy and planning can allow the industry to bloom, to explode, without suffering or causing any environmental damage.

As MacNulty put it: "Tourism and Travel is now one of the world's largest industries and the world's largest service industry, growing at an average annual rate of 4.5% worldwide....South Carolina has the people, the product, and the potential for so much more. The world just keeps getting flatter, and given the competition from other states and other countries, now is the time to move toward making South Carolina a truly competitive player in that most sustainable of economic arenas - tourism and hospitality."