For at least a decade ecotourism has been touted as the future of Maine’s tourist-based economy. But the delivery on that promise has fallen far short of predictions.

A new report issued by the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP) once again touts ecotourism as the road to prosperity for rural Maine. The report takes a swipe at traditional outdoor activities while suggesting that an investment of $100 million in “new destination development” will be needed to serve what it calls “experiential tourists.”

I am not sure what an experiential tourist is although I suspect I may be one.

The title of MECEP’s study is longer than the tourism season in Maine — “Amenity Investments and Tourist Destination Development: Policy Insights from Three Rural Maine Regions.”

The study assesses destination strengths, weaknesses, growth opportunities, and critical investment needs using three case studies in Northern Franklin County, Piscataquis County, and Washington County.

The study was done by David Vail, who directs MECEP’s project “Spreading Prosperity to All of Maine” and also teaches economics and environmental studies at Bowdoin College.

I was particularly intrigued by Vail’s observances of the condition of Maine’s northern forests, a battleground between environmentalists and large landowners with many different fronts from windpower to forest-harvesting practices.

“Many of the places Thoreau found so awe inspiring remain as remote, unspoiled and unknown to out-of-state tourists as when he visited over a century and a half ago,” writes Vail.

“Indeed, many of these natural areas and their gateways are rural Maine’s hidden gems… They host exceptional outdoor recreation opportunities, cultural heritage amenities and hospitality services,” he says.

Vail even blasts right past the raging controversy over Plum Creek’s development plans by concluding, “The Moosehead Lake region has good prospects for major four season developments, including a revived local ski area and Plum Creek’s Lake Concept Plan, with its resort and second home development, coupled with large scale wildland conservation.”

Since 2004 ten reports and studies have been issued that recommend additional investment in “quality of place,” including tourism amenities, as a key to Maine’s economic development.

Vail brings one new suggestion to the plate: moving the traditional plea for more marketing and promotion of tourism to a recommendation for $100 of investment destinations and products.

“While past state tourism support focused primarily on marketing, this is changing incrementally,” he reports. “The three case studies underscore the need for a more ambitious state tourism strategy, emphasizing destination and product development.”

Vail’s five-year goal of underwriting $100 million in “new destination development investments” would focus on these priorities:

1) Transportation infrastructure, particularly maintaining and upgrading roads, but also experimenting with alternative modes for bringing tourists to rural destinations comfortably and conveying them smoothly among the destination’s attractions

2) Downtown revitalization targeted to the most promising gateway and destination communities

3) High-quality green infrastructure to complement Maine’s outstanding and accessible lands and waters

4) High-speed internet and effective cell phone service to meet the basic needs of today’s tourism businesses and the basic demands of its customers

5) Frontline employee training and small business outreach programs to enhance the quality of customer service

The money for Vail’s $100 million of investment would come from existing bonds (roads and bridges for example), a new bond, general revenues, and dedicated revenues (something new that’s similar to meals and lodging taxes).

And of course we’d need a new program to “establish broad place-based tourism investment guidelines and encourage stakeholders to compete for funds on the merit of their proposed destination investments.”

Vail also makes a pitch for a bunch of current projects and programs including the Keeping Maine’s Forests initiative (stay tuned — it’ll be the subject of next week’s blog), Three Ring Binder information technology project, the Transportation Enhancement Program, Quality of Place program, Mobilize Maine, The Maine Woods Tourism Training Initiative, and the Maine Nature Tourism Initiative.

The latter was the result of a FERMATA study following the 2003 Blaine House Conference on Maine’s Natural Resource-based Industries.

You can be forgiven for thinking we’re plowing the same ground, with only the barest of harvests year after year.

I asked two people in the tourism field who I greatly respect to react to Vail’s most recent study: Don Kleiner and Vaughn Stinson, chair and executive director, respectively, of the Maine Tourism Association.

Here’s some of what Stinson had to say.

“It is very interesting and renews some hope within me that Maine leaders at all levels are acknowledging the positive impact our industry has and will have on Maine’s economy in the future. We need infrastructure in the rural areas for the visitor to spend serious time there.

This comes about when you have a “businesses friendly” legislative process.”

“Maine currently invests about $9 million of the $530 million the tourism industry generates every year to Maine’s general fund. Maine has more than enough money to invest within that $530 million tourism generates. WITHOUT raising taxes.”

The capitalization is Vaughn’s.

Stinson noted that “it is difficult if not almost impossible to find help, and as important, state funds to build a tourism business,” today in Maine.

Addressing Vail’s call for a new program, Vaughn said, “Let’s work with what we know works and stop experimenting… We have a very successful tourism grant program within the Maine Office of Tourism. We just need to fund it to a greater capacity and increase its capabilities,” Stinson concluded.

And then he threw down the gauntlet.

“Invest in tourism and it will grow and it will return your investment many times over. That is a proven fact. The new Governor and Legislature will have that capability and Maine tourism can make it happen. There is no obstacle that good leadership cannot overcome,” Stinson, ever-the-optimist, reported.

Kleiner, a Maine guide who offers traditional fishing and hunting trips as well as the ecotourist experiential outdoor experiences that Vail touts, is more pessimistic.

“I would caution that government has a very poor track record of identifying businesses with potential for success,” wrote Kleiner. And he uses an example right out of Vail’s playbook.

Vail cited the Appalachian Mountain Club’s lands and facilities north and west of Greenville as a “main growth opportunity center.”

Kleiner reports something I know to be true: “the AMC camps in the Moosehead Region are not wildly successful even with the AMC’s considerable know how, some of our tax money and a gated reserve.”

“I would agree that we need to work on improving our infrastructure in the rural parts of the state to make them more inviting to visitors,” said Kleiner. “Folks expect a much higher standard of quality in the places that they stay and eat today.”

He offers a delicious example.

“I had someone turn down a red delicious apple this summer because they are not distinctive enough. If folks are expecting braeburn apples on a guided morning fishing trip what is the level of expectation at dinner? Glad I am not in that business,” he said.

Kleiner also agreed that training is needed. “I am still struck with the lack of understanding many who want to get into my business have of how it works or how expensive it is. At least once year I have a new competitor who says publicly that ‘they don’t need to make all of that money’ and are gone by the second season.”

If you are still with me, here is one final concern. Vail dismisses the traditional outdoor activities that have driven, and still drive, our rural Maine economy.

“While hunting, fishing, camping and other venerable outdoor recreation activities will continue to contribute to Maine’s rural economy, they show little growth potential. The key to significant tourism growth is attracting more experiential tourists in search of ‘the whole package’ – outdoor recreation experiences combined with high quality hospitality services, shopping opportunities and cultural and heritage activities. In other words, quality experiences in quality places.”

I am outraged by this condescension, having experienced many “quality experiences in quality places” while hunting and fishing both in and out of Maine.

Vail could not be more mistaken. Fishing particularly holds great promise and potential for growth with wise investments that deliver better fishing - especially on Maine’s rivers.

I’m a river angler and I’ve been blessed to have fished on great rivers in Alaska, Montana, Quebec, and Labrador. Maine’s rivers are just as wild and beautiful. We simply don’t have the quality fishery found in other places that are now destinations for the world’s anglers.

A visit to Oquossic’s new fly fishing museum (last week’s blog topic) will demonstrate what we once had. We can have it again.

Furthermore, despite tremendous effort by some Maine guides, those experiential tourists are not the high-profit centers predicted.

I was having a conversation with Don Kleiner a few months ago when he emailed me his June 23 blog (www.maineoutdoors.biz) and the following advertisement from a competitor: “Experience the sights and sounds of marsh creatures under the full moon. Watch for black-crowned nigh heron along the bank or snowy egret flying back to nearby island for the evening. We may even see a harbor seal or a muskrat playing in the water.”

The Maine Audubon ad offers nine dates for this trip for an adult fee of $11. No Maine birding guide can possibly compete with this opportunity by one of Maine’s leading environmental organizations.

Kleiner wrote in his blog, “I have offered nature trips of many variations for well over twenty years and have never had results that come close to any of those reports (about the huge potential of ecotourism). I have offered what I consider to be quality trips at a fair price.

“Over the years they have been in packages offered with the largest hotel and resort in our area to several small bed and breakfasts. Sales are not zero, do not get me wrong, but certainly nothing to even come close to what fishing brings in the summer months or hunting in the fall.”

And he noted that the ecotourist trips sell at lower prices than hunting and fishing trips.

“I am wondering why the nature traveler does not place value on what a Maine Guide offers. Why is it that someone who wants to catch a fish places value on what a guide can do but someone who wants to see an eagle or a loon does not?

“My latest theory is that perhaps because various small nonprofit type groups offer a variety of nature trips for free or at very low cost almost everywhere, these types of trips are seen as having no value,” wrote Kleiner.

“By way of example, the local land trust is offering my exact afternoon canoe trip for free later this summer. I am sure that their interest is to get folks out in the watershed but is one of the unintended consequences that a trip to these out of the way places is of no value?”

A provocative question from one of Maine’s top professional guides and a state leader of the tourism industry.

The MECEP study is just the latest of many that predict Maine could attract more tourists with more and better investments.

Most of the studies extol the great north woods and “hidden gems” in rural Maine, while reporting that the amenities that today’s ecotourist seek are missing.

They see a rosy future of ecotourists who seek fine dining, a comfortable if quaint lodge, a bit of bird watching, a morning on the water in a kayak, and lots of shopping.

As an avid birder and a guy who likes his dining fine, I don’t deny that Maine can do better in attracting others of similar interests.

But give me a fly rod and a river full of fish, or a shotgun and a forest full of grouse and woodcock, and I’ll show you how to make money the old fashioned way.

The views expressed on this Web site are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent the views of Down East Enterprise or its employees.