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Neighboring states are setting precedents that could help South Carolina's cash-strapped tourism agency fund the state's nine welcome centers - including one in Little River.
The state legislature cut the 2010-2011 S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism budget by $5.6 million. Among its efforts to reduce costs, PRT is seeking a new way to pay for its welcome centers, which cost about $1.87 million to operate, and is looking at North Carolina's private contracts, Georgia's advertising and sponsorship model and Virginia's attempts at moving the centers to private property as ways to keep the centers operating.
Handing the centers over to private businesses is not allowed under federal guidelines, requiring states to think creatively for ways to fund the centers as public funds dry up. For-profit vendors were banned from rest stops along interstates in 1960, as part of the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, although older rest stops and highways were grandfathered in.
Some states have worked to change federal law, so far unsuccessfully.
S.C. PRT aims to fund some of its centers by handing over operations, and costs, to not-for-profits - such as chambers of commerce, convention and visitors bureaus and regional tourism agencies.
The PRT is in talks with not-for-profits to run the centers in Dillon, Hardeeville, Fort Mill and Santee.
But no parties expressed interest in running the Little River center, which costs about $210,000 to operate, or the state's four other centers.
The PRT lost another possible avenue to fund its welcome centers earlier this week, when a state commission decided not to recommend the centers be funded through tourism taxes. The Tax Realignment Commission - appointed by the state to suggest changes to the tax code - had considered giving the PRT 5 percent of state accommodations tax but ultimately did not recommend the change.
Opportunities may open up as other states test out their ideas for funding the centers. The PRT is watching the fledgling projects in other states, spokesman Marion Edmonds said.
"One of the questions that always comes up is the limitations of a federal right of way," Edmonds said. "I'll be curious to see just what [other states] have done."
North Carolina
There's a big jump from drug testing government employees to handing out maps to tourists, but that's the direction Kim Price took when she began operating a visitors center earlier this year.
Price is president of Safe-T-Works, a company contracted by North Carolina to screen employees for drug and alcohol use. As a government contractor, she receives alerts every time the state opens a contract to bidders, she said.
When the state announced a plan to privatize operations at a visitors center south of Asheboro on U.S. 220, it sparked Price's interest, she said.
"I love to travel and I've been to almost every state in the U.S., and when I go there I actually visit welcome centers," Price said.
She started the company Safe-T-Concierge Services, submitted a bid and began running the center in January. Her center is one of two pilot projects in the state that were sanctioned by the N.C. General Assembly, said Jimmy Parrish, N.C. DOT's rest area section supervisor. The other project in Wilkes County is run by a local chamber of commerce, similar to what the S.C. PRT plans to do.
The center's only revenue comes from advertising through free brochures and indoor displays, Price said, since federal rules don't allow her to sell anything.
Myrtle Beach is one of the center's big advertisers, she said. The Myrtle Beach Area and North Myrtle Beach chambers of commerce, Ripley's Entertainment and the Alabama Theatre have each paid to promote themselves at the center, Price said.
The company hopes to break even by operating the center during the next three to five years and make a small profit after that, Price said. The center may never make much money on its own but may open up opportunities to expand operations to other centers or states, she said.
The center must pay the state if it makes more than a set amount of money, but that has yet to happen, Parrish said. There are no plans to expand the project to other centers unless the General Assembly takes further action, he said.
The state probably can't support many fully private centers like Price's, but public-private partnerships of some sort could save states a lot of money, Price said
"The opportunity is out there for a lot of these destinations and tourist attractions to help supplement to the state, they've been basically allowed to get this for a free ride," Price said.
Georgia
The Georgia DOT similarly seeks to contract out its individual welcome centers and rest stops to companies that will be responsible for maintenance and operation as well as obtaining advertising and sponsorships, according to the agency's website.
The DOT has already requested interested companies file their qualifications by Nov. 10. Those who qualify will be able to bid on the centers in spring 2010, said Jill Goldberg, DOT deputy press secretary.
Advertising opportunities include "LED screens for an electronic logo program, branded WiFi service, printed materials, static signs, downloadable local advertising for smart phones," while sponsorships could include "signage on/in facility, branded areas such as dog walks, picnic areas, landscaped areas and 'sponsor a highway' mile near facility," according to the DOT website.
The Georgia DOT has hired a consultant to determine how much advertising and sponsorships could be worth and has requested the Federal Highway Administration clarify what type of private operations will be allowed, Goldberg said. More states than Georgia are waiting on the FHWA's response.
"We've been told that there are a number of states waiting on our ruling because they want to proceed but basically they don't want to put the financial commitment into consultants," Goldberg said.
Virginia
Slower to innovate than its three neighbors to the south, Virginia hasn't launched new programs to fund welcome centers or rest stops yet, but it has some original ideas for skirting federal regulations that limit commercial operations off of interstates.
Many rest area and visitors center buildings off of interstates are old and nearing the end of their working lives, DOT spokesman Jeff Caldwell said. A private company could build its own center off of an old rest stop parking lot, Caldwell said. The new facility would have to be set back far enough that it's on private land and be accessible by walkways from the parking lot, he said.
The Virginia DOT is waiting for federal approval for such projects, Caldwell said. The state is also considering advertising or sponsorship deals with private companies, he said.
Finding new funding for welcome centers and rest stops would only cut about $21 million annually out of the DOT's budget, Caldwell said, a small amount compared to the $4 billion the state cut from the agency's budget over the next six years. Handing off welcome centers and rest stops would be part of the solution to the budget problems.
"We were looking under every couch cushion to try to come up with cost-saving options," he said.
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