After years of struggle, the City of Chillicothe is seeing improvement in both tourism, and sales at its local businesses.
Randy Davies, head of the Chillicothe Ross Chamber of Commerce, says reported sales for the start of the holiday season have been much stronger than in years past."Several years ago, our community was really suffering, and you could really see and feel desperation for need for visitors and shoppers to come to the area," said Davies.
"We have a lot of young entrepreneurs in the Chillicothe who have really stepped out in faith to open new stores and create new marketing opportunities, and we're really starting to see the good effects of that.
"Davies says local tourism numbers are up as well."A lot of people are now coming to town," said Davies. "We're back again as a large regional shopping area for central and southern Ohio. Our weekend visitor count is starting to go up as stores are starting to see more visitors coming into their stores, especially on Sundays, which has happened in a number of years."
Davies says the improvement shows that the city is starting to become what's known as a Destination City, a city which in and of itself, is an attraction. Davies says he believes this has a lot to do with the wide variety of shops available to the public.
To hear Randy Davies Communique interview, go to our podcast link seen below...