Have the Area Around the Airport Give a Welcome Like None Other

    The land around an airport should have a value like none other, but doesn't. Instead, we place such things as industrial parks next to them.
   Would that Salt Lake did it differently. Would that Salt Lake saw the land as opportunity, and treated the land as a jewel. Why not place next to the airport those who use it most, to the extent that that is possible?
   Large corporations fly folks in and out. Why not leave land available near the airport for them to locate there, should they ever want to? Tourists fly in and out. Why not locate near the airport some of your tourist attractions? Convention-goers fly in and out. Why not have convention facilities there?
   The sky is an entrance gate to your city, and in some cases to your state. Why not roll out the red carpet in the land around the airport? Make it a jewel. Make it a showcase. Why not say "Welcome" by putting your best foot forward right when you greet those arriving from the skies?
   Put on your best face. Put on all your make-up and rouge, for you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.
   Have everything well-landscaped, of course. But, that is just the start.
   Some of the businesses you seek to attract might end up being tourist attractions, themselves. I think of Hershey's, and how it attracts tourists to Pennsylvania. So, seek to place around your airport businesses that people might be excited to visit.
   Bring all the entertainment venues you can into your airport district. Concerts from national and international stars are a plus, but also curry and showcase your own entertainment. The best of your local musicians should never lack for a stage, as you are putting them forward as if to say, "Look what we've got!"
   Kind of a Branson, Missouri, or Austin, Texas, approach.
   But, you put some twists on it. Say, bring in the best high school or college choirs from across the land, and always have one performing. It occurs to me that many colleges have wonderful performing groups, yet there perhaps is no venue in all the country that caters just to them. Or, seek out the best child singers, and have a venue just for them. Or, showcase the best violin players, and/or best organists, and/or best banjo players in all the land.
   Make yourself the capital of the world for whatever does not already have a place that showcases and caters to it. Chess? Become the capital. Always have a grand master on hand willing to play the tourist in a blind-folded game. Make this the place to come to if you want to get a game against a grand master or to see how you fare on a ladder-board with the best chess talent in all the land. If the best chess players need a town to move to where they can perform daily, make this the place.
   Establish a destination-worthy museum. Maybe have a world-class amusement park. Have a circus that never leaves town.
  Have a smorgasbord- or potpourri-of-Utah visitors center, which showcases and teases all the outlying attractions in the state, and provides travel arrangements to get there.
    All nations flowing here? There are a lot of things Utah could do to capitalize on the tourist industry, and creating a welcome district near the airport seems to me a wonderful idea. Fortunately -- if only for the moment -- we still have a lot of land there that could be used for these things. Maybe it's best that we not let the land go to industrial parks and prisons.