The Route 66 town of Pontiac, Ill., is seeing a 30 percent increase in tourists over a year ago, according to a report in the Bloomington Pantagraph.
Tourism director Ellie Alexander keeps a regular tally of visitor numbers. So the boost in tourism isn’t anecdotal.
An increase in the number of tour groups is mostly responsible for the increase, she said. Tour groups include coach bus tours, car clubs, motorcycle groups, women’s clubs, church groups, student groups and other organizations.
So far in 2011, more than 20,000 tourists have visited the city.
“I would say it has far exceeded our expectations,” said City Administrator Bob Karls. […]
The tourism season is starting to slow, Alexander said, but last week, 517 visitors from 19 states and 15 countries registered at the local museums. In addition to the Route 66 Museum and Pontiac Oakland Auto Museum, Pontiac also is home to the International Walldog Mural and Sign Art Museum and the Livingston County War Museum.
“We are up by about 63 percent for group tours,” Alexander said, “and that is what really drives up our international numbers.”
The biggest weekend of 2011 was when the Pontiac Oakland Auto Museum opened in July. About 3,000 people visited the museum at that time.
I travel frequently through Europe on business as well as the US on my Harley and wherever I go conversations about Route 66 elicit excitement and comments about wanting to travel the Mother Road. Having the new museum in Pontiac is certainly an incentive for travelers to visit hence the increase in tourists. The maxim ” if you build it they will come” is undeniably true here. Hopefully other towns on the route will learn and profit from Pontiac’s investment