Saturday, August 15, 2015

Salt Lake City -- Always Something

   Sometimes, a tourist comes calling as quickly as given a call. Call him, invite him, and that's all it takes.
   Las Vegas invited the gamblers. Los Angeles invited amusement park goers. Even a small city, such as Branson, Missouri (population about 11,000) found it could draw crowds as easily as building an attraction and sending out invites. Branson splashed out a number of entertainment venues, including Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, and now attracts visitors from across the county.
    Two guys with the last name of Borglum carved the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt into the mountains of South Dakota and people have being rushing to see it ever since. In the same state, the Jackpine Gypsies motorcycle club held a rally in Sturgis in 1938, and it blossomed to become an event so successful that it stretches the capacity of the community to host it.
   It's a formula that works: Give the people something to see, and they will flock to your community. As the character played by Kevin Costner learned, Build it, and they will come.
   If Salt Lake City so desired, it could turn itself into a tourist city, more so than it already is. There are a lot of things we could build. To borrow on a slogan, we could build so many things that people would come here for the best of everything. There is a large, undeveloped corner of the city beckoning to host such dream development, a place where everything could be packed into a large tourist zone. Now, in all their zoning, I doubt any city does this -- master plans a sprawling tourist zone -- albeit they do have smaller amusement zonings.
   Listen to what we could do, and tell me it would take mile after square mile to accommodate it all. Now, before we get started, I want to suggest we steer clear of the entertainment many communities invite. No "adult" entertainment. Don't even have a liquor store in the entire zone, although granting liquor licenses to the hotels. Keeping the licenses to the hotels will allow tourists who need to drink to do it there, without it becoming a part of the entertainment offerings, themselves.
   So, here goes.
   Build an activities mall, complete with the finest facilities for wall climbing, yoga, skateboarding, target shooting, paint-balling, and most every other activity. Make the facilities so nice, that if you are a skateboarder, you will want to come to Salt Lake City so you can say you've done one of the world's best skateboarding sites. Same with each of the other activities.
  Hold national or international-level competitions in every one of the activities, thus attracting visitors on two levels, they coming both to participate, and to spectate.
   Built a place where the best high school and college choirs perform. Invite the best. After a time, it comes to be that if you want to be known as one of the best college singing groups in all the land, then you must be able to say you've played at High Note Central (or whatever it should come to be named) in Salt Lake City, just like it is a big deal for a performer to say they've played on Broadway. And, on the flip side, it comes to be known that if you want to catch such music live, you come to Salt Lake City.
   Cater to hobbyists of most every different type. Make Salt Lake City capital for each. For example, have national cooking competitions. Provide a cooking school that offers a one- or two-week course so it will fit into the schedule of a vacationer. Develop or bring in a world-famous cook to teach.
   Make Salt Lake the chess capital, a place where you can come to play grandmasters blindfolded, or participate in what is called a ladder, playing up the ladder against top competition from throughout the nation. Make the program so strong, chess enthusiasts will flow to Salt Lake City to be part of it simply because they are chess player and this is the place where you go when you are a chess player. Chess is just one idea, but if you get every chess enthusiast in the country thinking he or she needs to come here, you've got a fair number of visitors.
     Have a standing circus, not just an ordinary circus, but one of the best, so people will want to say they've seen Ferrado's Circus (or whatever we name it) in Salt Lake City.
     Build a destination-worthy museum or aquarium or arboretum or observatory or zoo or amusement park -- or all of the above. Or, provide shuttle services to the current zoo, aquarium, or amusement park. Run polished video teasers of the offerings at a visitors' center.
   Do a new thing that has never been done. Build a large building -- perhaps called the House of Discussion or perhaps called the Rocky Mountain Exchange -- where people come to study, discuss and exchange ideas on the world's issues. Abortion? There is a library with all the books on the topic, all of the videos and, when possible, spokespersons from the various organizations. In addition to studying, you can go a room with other vacationers to discuss the pros and cons of abortion.
   Same with evolution, you have a library, spokespersons and authorities, and a discussion group. Same for global warming, and immigration, and capital punishment, and gun control and so on.
   Birds already being a slight attraction, what about creating a world-class aviary and making those birds a big attraction? Rope off a portion of the tourist zone from being developed, so it is preserved as a bird sanctuary. Give it state park status. Tell the stories of the native birds and of other birds. Seek out stories of birds from history, such as when the seagulls saved the crops in the Salt Lake Valley and tell these stories in well-produced videos.
   Rejuvenate the Salt Flats. They remain one of the world's wonders. Market what you have. This and our wetlands are two things we already have that we should build on. Hold races more often, and market and advertise them better than has been done in the past. Why should not having the world's fastest vehicles in town be something not only to attract tourists, but something Utah residents should not be excited to watch?
   I don't know, is there anything special about running on the salt surface? Could we bill it as the world's fastest natural track, and invite runners to come set records for being the fastest on a natural or salt surface?
   Nearest to the airport, have a visitors' center offering stunning video footage from the national and state parks from across the state -- and from other tourist-worthy locations. Provide bus service to the various sites for those who didn't think of these parks before they came, but now don't want to miss them.
   Leading over to the visitor's center, have a welcoming tunnel, where visitors walk along an interactive wall with changing images on it. A dog runs alongside, barking in a dog-type voice that says, "Welcome to Salt Lake City." When the visitor yells, "Duck," the image changes to that of a duck, and the duck quacks the same, "Welcome to Salt Lake City." He yells, "Bear," and a bear appears, growling out, "Welcome to Utah, buster!"
  Say, "Mountains," and the mountains of Utah appear on the wall of the tunnel. Say, "Skiing," and footage of skiing appears. Say, "Polygamy," and a cut from "Sister Wives" comes up.
   Touch the image on the wall with your hand, and it implodes, seemingly being swallowed up into your hand. Touch it again, and it explodes into an image of steam rolling through a sky of sparkling stars.
   At the end of the tunnel, the imagery on the wall gives way to a transparent wall, and an actual person walks alongside you, welcoming you to Salt Lake City. Or, instead of that, perhaps have the tunnel open into a small room where a member of the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir is there to sing a personal greeting. Or, have the choir member be the person at the end of the tunnel.
   Strengthen events at Miller Motorsports Park. Pass a portion of the Tour of Utah through the area. Have so many events and attractions that there is always something going on. Make your slogan, Salt Lake City -- Always Something.
   (This blog updated and corrected 8/17/15.)

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