Yesterday, our ACRI cohort returned to the Connellsville Cultural Trust to present our research. This was the culmination of a semester of work, and I was really proud of our cohort. This was my first time taking a project like this from start to finish, and it was definitely a challenge. We completed 7 interviews on tourism development with a wide variety of people, and it took many group conversations to synthesize common themes. But I felt that we were able to turn our work into a solid set of insights and recommendations. 

Not many people we invited were able to show up. In the future, may need to use a more adaptive presentation format. My goal is to send a pdf of the slides to the folks we interviewed so we can continue the conversation with them. However, one unexpected positive outcome of not seeing many familiar faces was that I got to chat with some new people and gain fresh perspectives—even at this late point in the process! After our presentation, one of my groupmates and I had a long conversation with three women about barriers to development and interesting places to visit in Fayette County.  We had already met Marilyn Weaver, who runs a free medical clinic in the county. This time, we also got to speak with Brooke, the head of the Connellsville Chamber of Commerce, and Paula, who works with the Cultural Trust.

Everyone we have met in Fayette is committed to the county’s success and very eager to tell us their thoughts. These women were no different. After I asked them their thoughts on tourism, they took the conversation in several different directions. For the most part, they were supportive of tourism, but felt that marketing to tourists was a challenge, especially cyclists on the GAP trail. They seemed to be more focused on resolving the deeply rooted struggles of the county, asking why Pitt doesn’t pay more attention to drug use and homelessness in Fayette. They also discussed the struggles of the local school district, saying that many teachers are currently functioning as makeshift social workers. 

As I’ve reflected on this conversation, it has become clear that the challenges of tourism or general economic development AND community wellbeing must be addressed simultaneously. My group spent a lot of time discussing this issue, and ultimately concluded that tourists will continue coming to Fayette whether anyone likes it or not. Ultimately, the county must figure out the best way to use tourism as a resource, rather than allowing it to exacerbate existing problems. I would encourage future cohorts to keep this challenge at the top of their minds and consider how Pitt’s resources can support the county in these efforts.

My team created a set of final deliverables based on three growth areas for tourism that appeared throughout our interviews. Fayette has a set of strong tourism assets, including destinations that attract regional, national, and international visitors, marketing, and county leadership focused on planning for tourism. These growth areas are tangible places where Pitt and Fayette can work together to level up tourism in the county.

The first growth area is Fayette’s accommodation shortage. Housing and short-term vacation rentals came up in many of our interviews. The people we spoke with told us that tourism in Fayette took off during the pandemic. This led to many homes in Fayette being turned into short-term rentals, which was a lucrative opportunity for many Fayette homeowners and filled a need for tourist accommodation. However, the growth of short-term rentals has eaten away at Fayette’s housing stock and limits the county’s ability to grow. Another issue related to tourism and housing is Fayette’s lodging tax, which is levied on all tourist accommodation. This money goes towards a tourism marketing grant, bringing more visitors into the county. However, several people we spoke with stated that short-term vacation rentals are skirting this tax. If this is true, then Fayette is missing out on a lot of revenue. 

We recommended several next steps for Pitt to take through future cohorts or internships. Pitt should conduct a study on short-term rentals’ impact and interview people who run Fayette’s hotels, bed and breakfasts, campgrounds, and short-term rentals. In terms of long-term housing, Pitt students could create case studies on best practices on rural housing development. Suggestions for possible housing construction spots came up in several interviews. If further research confirms our findings, Pitt can also work with Fayette to investigate strategies for enforcing the lodging tax.

The second growth area is tourism infrastructure. Fayette needs to build physical and informational tools that connect visitors to all of the county’s tourism assets. Interviewing Fayette residents revealed that while Fallingwater and Ohiopyle receive tons of visitors, places like Uniontown and Connellsville could use more visitors. Without growing the county’s tourism infrastructure, Fayette will continue to have many asset “islands” with little connection to each other or to the county as a whole.

In the future, Pitt can help the county create these tools. My team suggested that cohorts could facilitate community design contests for signage, or take community members on mobile tours where they can point out important places for the county and intersections that deserve better signage (Think: “Welcome to Uniontown!” or “Ohiopyle this way, Fallingwater that way”). We also believe that it’s important for Fayette’s tourism stakeholders to hold regular meetings to collaborate and share information. Further down the road, it may be valuable to create a Connellsville Business Improvement District (BID) to foster growth around the GAP Trail as a natural asset connector. BIDs are organizations funded by all the businesses within a certain area. They run community events, support entrepreneurs, and keep the area looking nice. Connellsville already has a Chamber of Commerce—future cohorts should work with this organization to think about what a BID would look like.

The final growth area is community investment. Securing community buy-in will be vital for the success of tourism in Fayette County, as a small county receiving around two million visitors each year. Muriel Nuttal, head of the Fayette Chamber of Commerce identified community involvement as a challenge for the county. She stated that many people in Fayette feel disconnected from the county’s development. This theme was repeated by several other people, including the three women I spoke with at the Cultural Trust this week. As tourism in Fayette develops and grows, it’s important that county leadership work to plug in the people who are disconnected. That is not an easy task, but my group came up with a few recommendations for Pitt and Fayette to take action on.

On Pitt’s end, we hope to experiment with large-scale community engagement at events like the Fayette County Fair this summer. This will be a step up from the one-on-one interview strategy we have mostly used so far. These interviews have given us a lot of great information, and expanding our engagement will provide a new perspective. Eventually, our hope is that building community engagement strategies will lead to a growth plan for Fayette driven by residents’ vision for tourism. My group also recommended that tourist destinations like Fallingwater expand their local-facing programs, such as school field trips. Community-focused programs have helped organizations like Touchstone build bridges with Fayette residents.

If I could wave a magic wand, I would automatically implement the housing research we suggested. Housing and tourist accommodation is a very data-driven problem. I hesitate to recommend any specific actions for the county without more information on hand. Having quantitative data, plus more qualitative information from interviews, would move this growth area ahead several steps, allowing Pitt and Fayette to create a more concrete strategy for housing. 

There are several steps that should be taken with this research, based on a short term rental data and study proposal published by Alexandria, Virginia.

• What percentage of Fayette’s housing units are short-term rentals?
• How many of these units are owner occupied, and how many have the property owner living off site?
• How much money is generated from short term rentals?
• Have there been complaints from neighbors about short term rentals? Have the police had to respond to any calls?
• What steps have been taken to regulate short term rentals in other jurisdictions?

Interviewing stakeholders in the tourist accommodation sector will also be an important part of this process. Here are some questions that could generate useful information:

• What are the challenges of running a tourist accommodation business?
• What are the busiest seasons for your business?
• What are some growth areas for this sector in Fayette County? Are you looking to expand? Why or why not?

Some delicately worded questions to short-term rental owners on the lodging tax could also go a long way. In short, future cohorts have plenty of work cut out for them and many paths for research. I hope to be involved in this work in the future, but I also look forward to seeing the work of future groups.