SBIR-STTR Award

If tourists driving through rural areas could be better informed about the existence of local businesses, the goods and services they offer, and how to find them, millions of tourists' dollars could be directed to rural economies that now pass them by. Two little-used programs could help do that. One is a system of tourist information centers, and the other is a state-sponsored signing program, indicating how to find local businesses. The proposed study will assess and compare the induced increase in business sales with implementation costs of existing successful information center and highway signing programs in Oregon, Washington, and California. It will demonstrate the economic value of promoting the programs in unserved or underserved rural areas. It is expected that the programs will be shown to pay their own way. Cost information will be obtained from program cost records and interviews with administrators. Sales impact data will be obtained from business operators and patrons. Appropriate statistical analysis techniques will be used, and financial models will be developed to express the relationships between revenue, cost, and relevant independent variables.Applications:The study results are expected to encourage states to implement the programs and encourage rural businesses to participate by providing (I) estimates of program impacts on rural business sales and regional economic activity, for the programs operated separately and in combination, (2) estimates of the costs to implement the programs, and (3) identification of the institutional obstacles to implementing a combined program.

A "Tourist-Oriented Directional Signs" (TODS) program provides for the erection of uniform signs which assist the traveling public locate and access rural tourist-oriented businesses. In the few states where it has been tried, TODS has proven to be of overwhelming economic benefit to rural economies. In Phase I, we determined that current annual direct business sales resulting from the TODS program in Oregon and Washington were $18.3 million and S7.4 million, respectively. Accounting for secondary economic impacts, total statewide benefits were S37.4 million in Oregon and S15.9 million in Washington. The TODS programs' benefits/cost ratios are nearly 2,500:1 in Oregon and over 1,000:1 in Washington. Rural business subscribers provide all of the funds to support the program. Therefore, TODS is entirely self-supporting. Private operation of the program can increase its cost-effectiveness. In Phase II, programs will be designed and implemented in California and Vermont, identifying the most cost-effective division of public/private responsibilities. The objective is to produce prototype TODS programs which all other states can use to implement a fully or partially privatized commercially operated TODS program.Applications:We will develop the guidelines for and take the lead in implementing two prototypical examples for all states to follow in implementing privatized self-supporting TODS programs. We will monitor and assess the results of the two efforts, outline those results as demonstration programs, and work directly with up 10 to 12 additional states to help them develop their own privatized TODS programs. We will then promote the implementation models in all states nationwide, where we estimate that the programs will yield rural economic benefits in the hundreds of millions of dollars, even before they are fully subscribed.