The Ohio Heritage Area Program is a unique partnership of state agencies and statewide organizations working collectively to increase visitor spending in Ohio. By creating heritage areas, it encourages preservation of cultural resources for tourism and other economic opportunities. Some examples of heritage tourism areas are Southwestern Pennsylvania's nine county Steel Heritage Corridor and Indiana's 17 county Wabash River Heritage Corridor. Heritage Corridor, Ohio's four county Simon Kenton Corridor and Ohio's National Scenic Byway, the Ohio River.
Tourism is the world's largest industry employing one of every nine people worldwide.
In the US, tourism is the second largest employer. Tourism represents 14.3 billion dollars in cash register receipts in Ohio, 1.04 billion in state taxes and 389,000 jobs. By creating heritage areas, new jobs for residents of the area will be created too. The first phase, Planning , is extremely important to any heritage area program. Planning calls for local representation from diverse backgrounds of people in the community.