Visitors center in danger of closing

Several years ago, the businesses in Myerstown took up a collection to build a visitors center in the small town. A local hotel owner donated the land, and volunteers built the center off Interstate 78 and Route 501 in Lebanon County.

The center, owned and operated by the Hershey-Capital Region

Talk of closing the center has faced with stiff opposition. If the center closes, Lebanon County Commissioner Bill Carpenter said the county would withdraw from the bureau and take its $90,000 in hotel taxes.

The issue was expected to be discussed again Thursday at the bureau's board meeting. Janis Schmees, president of the Hershey-Capital Region Visitors Bureau, said visitors centers are not as vital as they used to be. Unless the centers attract tens of thousands of visitors, they are not the most efficient way to disseminate information, she said. The Myerstown center attracts about 4,000 people per year.

Since she took over the bureau last year, Schmees has closed two visitors centers, one in Carlisle and one in Harrisburg. The bureau also has a center in Chambersburg.

Lebanon County used to have its own visitors center in the Quality Inn in Lebanon Township before it joined the regional bureau. Businesses felt they had lost touch when the center closed. The opening of the center in Myerstown was seen as a victory.

"They thought, 'We've finally got something from them,"' said Ed Arnold, a Lebanon County commissioner. Arnold is opposed to closing the center, but he said he knows it does not see many visitors.

Schmees' group represents Cumberland, Dauphin, Franklin, Lebanon and Perry counties.

The Myerstown center was supposed to serve travelers from New York and New Jersey who wanted to get to Route 501, but it has had little traffic, Schmees said.

Schmees is using the center to save money. She stopped paying an outside firm to stuff and send envelopes with information. The six part-time workers at the Myerstown office now do that work. The bureau's board members are discussing what to do with the center.

Earlier this year, they assured county commissioners it would remain open.

Allison Kramer, who works at the center, said she serves tourists who visit town on bus tours and stay at the Lantern Lodge next door. Residents of the Arbor Gate Retirement Home come over every day to find information on day trips and activities. She said it would not make sense to close the center if the bureau is trying to boost tourism.

"We send out these materials and then they (tourists) come and there's no visitors center?" Kramer said.

While the fate of the Myerstown center is being debated, about a dozen business owners on the other side of Lebanon County are laying the groundwork to open a visitor's center at the Lancaster-Lebanon exit on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

They are doing so without the bureau and because they haven't been getting much business from the Myerstown center.

Arnold, of the county commission, said he would not be opposed if the bureau lent its support to the proposed center.

Many travelers from eastern Pennsylvania use the exit to drive to Hershey and Lancaster. It also is the exit for the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair, which attracts 200,000 people a year.

"But there's nothing there to get the word to them," said Keith Volker, owner of the Mt. Gretna Inn in Mount Gretna, Lebanon County.

Volker said he is tired of hearing from his guests that they stumbled on his bed and breakfast. He thinks a visitors center with restrooms would give weary travelers a reason to stop. It also would attract attention to local sights and businesses. He and others began to grumble when the bureau opened the center in Myerstown instead of near them.

Volker and other business owners formed the Furnace Hills Country Project to coordinate their efforts. The project is named for the stone furnaces that dot the local landscape. Project members are working with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and local property owners to secure the land. They don't know how much the center will cost.

The project faces another obstacle: The land does not have a sewer line. The group hopes a business that plans to move nearby will pay for the line, said Kathy Snavely, owner of Lightkeeper Consulting in Mount Gretna. She did not know which company was considering the move.

It might take up to five years to receive the proper approvals and raise money for the building, Snavely said.

In the meantime, the project plans to hold a membership drive to see what companies are willing to pay to be included in new brochures and a promotional video. Snavely hopes to set up a brochure rack and display in a hotel near the proposed site in the spring. The group is accepting logo ideas from local schools.

The Hershey-Capital Region Visitors Bureau plans to help by providing promotional brochures and information, but it will not pay to open a center there, Schmees said.

The Furnace Hills Country Project acknowledges that Lebanon County has little chance of drawing as many tourists as its neighbors in Hershey and Lancaster. But Lebanon County can attract tourists looking for uncommon adventures, Volker said.

Guests at the Mt. Gretna Inn tend to like the quirky local historic sites, such as the Cornwall Furnace.

It operated from 1743 to 1973 and is known as one of the best-preserved blast furnaces in the United States.

"They're looking for those attractions that are small, unusual, intriguing," he said. "They land here and become one of my best repeat guests."