Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising, he said. People who have a good time in the Tri-Cities will share their experience with others, who then might come here and spend money. In turn, someone who has a bad experience will share that. He added that the Tri-Cities' competition is every city in the world. That means working to attract international tourists and making the area customer-friendly with employees and motor coach tour guides who can speak other languages, plus translations of maps and menus.
Agriculture is fascinating to people from big cities.
What you have is commonplace to you, but it's unique to others. That's a 23 percent increase from 1997. The Smith Barney financial consultant is the founder of the nonprofit Fishing Connection. He was leader of the family fishing pond project, which meant coordinating 1,000 volunteers and 95 organizations that donated materials and services. They are Tom Baranouskas with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Tim Fredrickson with Ben Franklin Transit, Sandy Matheson with Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, Scott Keller with the Port of Benton and Ken Sugden with the Franklin County Public Utility District.