(Photo: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Travel Oregon, the state’s tourism office, has released a 10-year draft transformational strategy for the Oregon tourism industry. Some cycling and transportation advocates think this could be a good opportunity to push the agency to promote car-free tourism and biking as part of its strategy.
Travel Oregon appears to want to make a dramatic change to its mission statement through this new strategy – the draft report says it will “reach beyond our typical purview and include long-range outcomes.” It says they’ve adopted two lenses to view the planning process through: a racial equity lens, which asks how decisions around Travel Oregon’s work may contribute to racial equity or inequity and how they can mitigate that impact; and a destination stewardship lens, which asks about the long-term consequences of Travel Oregon’s work in particular destinations and how they can contribute to long-term well-being of those destinations and the residents who live there.
Advocates say Travel Oregon needs to seize this opportunity to promote Oregon’s cycling culture, especially given the increasing popularity of e-bikes, which make it easier to travel longer distances by bike.
