The Lincoln (Ill.) Courier has a couple of good stories about tourism.
One is about how towns close to Springfield want to cash in on the overwhelming success that is the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. The towns on Route 66 seem to be doing well, but they certainly want to take advantage.
The other story is about the Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Geoff Ladd of the Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County advocates nominating Route 66 to the state’s new “Seven Wonders of Illinois” initiative. Ladd isn’t the only one with that idea, either.
“Abraham Lincoln and Route 66 are still the big draws,” he said, “second only to Chicago.”
Ladd said the state is also putting a lot of effort into international tourism with new marketing designed to draw more and more international visitors.
“Our strong suite there (also) is Route 66,” he said. “There is a lot of competition for international tourism.”
The article also contains interesting comments from tourism officials about the Lincoln museum and about how other historical Lincoln sites around Illinois are benefiting.