More than the Amish: Heritage Tourism in Lancaster County

In the wake of the 1985 Hollywood movie, Witness, which cast Lancaster County in a glamorous light as an idyllic land of simple pleasures among the Amish, this part of rural Pennsylvania met with its highest levels of tourism ever. By the mid-nineties, however, local and regional leaders began to recognize that if the county was going to assert itself in the tourism arena, it should include all of its authentic heritage sites and attractions, not just those pertaining to its most well-known citizens.

In 1994, Lancaster County applied for and was accepted as one of four pilot areas in the Pennsylvania Heritage Tourism Initiative, spearheaded by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and assisted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Heritage Tourism Program. Lancaster County’s Planning Commission led the effort, and local partners included the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster. Through its participation, the county created a community-based strategy that strives to balance the preservation of heritage resources with the economic benefits of sustainable tourism.

The Lancaster County Heritage Tourism Initiative organized a collaborative effort among public, private, and nonprofit sectors to promote not only museums and historic sites, but historic inns, taverns, and restaurants to demonstrate that preservation can be economically beneficial. Resident involvement was critical in determining the level of tourism needed and wanted locally. The Tourism Initiative conducted a newspaper survey to gauge residents’ opinions about heritage tourism and to ask for their input in developing the program. Nearly two dozen positive news articles and supporting editorials appeared in local newspapers and magazines between 1996 and 1999, and regional meetings and focus groups were conducted to determine issues and opportunities.

To ensure that the public has a continuing role in developing heritage tourism, several locally initiated, self-guided regional auto, bicycle, and walking tours have been created to link heritage sites together. It was grass-roots organizing and planning that created these tours in the communities, thereby providing residents with a say in what they wanted to share with visitors and what they wanted to keep private. “Creating broad public awareness and keeping the public involved in the process has been one of the keys to our success” claims Scott Standish, deputy director for Long Range Planning at the Lancaster Planning Commission.

One of the most innovative components of the Heritage Initiative is its reliance on a set of locally devised authenticity guidelines for heritage sites, services, and events. These criteria were established to ensure an authentic quality experience for visitors and to promote the development of new interpretive materials where none previously existed. A local graphic design firm created a Lancaster County Heritage logo that has been incorporated into the promotional materials of all participating heritage resources. Banners and signs sporting the logo are proudly displayed throughout the county. “The logo has become the ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval’ to help visitors seek out Lancaster’s authentic heritage,” says Standish. “Our authenticity guidelines also provide an added incentive to encourage authentic restorations and interpretation.”

Lancaster County is replete with heritage beyond that of the Amish, and the people at the Heritage Initiative want the world to know about everything from their chocolate factory, museums, Civil War sites, covered bridges, and old churches, to Ephrata Cloister, the 18th-century home of a communal society; the Fulton Opera House, reborn as a performing arts center; and Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which interprets the history of the Underground Railroad in the county. To actively promote these and many other heritage attractions, the initiative sponsors an annual heritage celebration to share local resources primarily with residents of the county so that they can become ambassadors for heritage tourism in their own backyards.

For more information, contact Lancaster County Planning Commission at (717) 299-8333 or online at www.lancastercountyheritage.com