Five Iowa communities are being picked to take part in what’s known as the First Impressions program, which is designed to strengthen tourism, attract new residents and cultivate a community’s quality of life.
Diane Van Wyngarden is a state tourism specialist with the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, which helped to develop the program, now in its second year, focused on towns with 10,000 or fewer residents.
“Last year, we had two communities,” Van Wyngarden says, “and we received such a strong response in both interest and in the communities who participated, we partnered with Iowa Economic Development and the Iowa Tourism Office, and they wanted to greatly expand the program, so we’re very pleased to be able to offer this to five communities this year.”
The first communities for the program’s opening year were Corning and Maquoketa. Van Wyngarden says this year’s five communities are: Independence, Manning, Perry, Washington and Webster City.
“Several trained assessors will be traveling incognito as first-time visitors to each of these communities,” Van Wyngarden says, “and they’ll be answering about an 80-question assessment tool on all things pertaining to tourism attractions as well as quality of life, housing, downtown, outdoor recreation.”
The assessors will also be looking for things like agritourism opportunities. Later this year, each community will get a 90-page report on the findings during a town hall meeting.
“We also provide recommendations, and that is presented at a public forum,” Van Wyngarden says. “Everyone is invited to the community forum where they can hear the outcome of this report, and then the community can choose if they want to use these recommendations, which ones and what action steps they would like to take.”
Learn more about the program here: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/communities/firstimpressions
(By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)