Chamber hires New Zion native to be tourism director

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There is a new face at the Clarendon County Chamber of Commerce.

New Zion resident Tiffany Myers is joining chamber Executive Director Ericka Sexton Floyd as the new director of tourism for Clarendon County, a position under the auspices of the chamber.

Clarendon County Council members approved funding for the chamber to operate a de facto county tourism department during their regular monthly meeting in June.

"The county is providing the chamber with funding to house a tourism department at the chamber, but they are not giving us funding for the tourism director position," said chamber President Pro Prothro.

Clarendon County Administrator David Epperson told council members earlier this month that the funding will come from the county's accommodations tax, which comes from "overnight stays in establishments in Clarendon County."

"The county receives a portion of those funds, and $25,000 comes off the top to the county general fund," Epperson said. "Then, it's divided into a promotional fund and a tourism fund. The money they've requested comes from this fund."

Epperson said 30 percent of the funds collected from the accommodations tax can go to a local non-profit agency for tourism-related activities.

"We are basically required to appropriate it to a local organization that meets that criteria or establish one of our own," Epperson said. "In this instance, the chamber is willing to operate this department with the allotted funding."

Prothro said that with 6.5 interchanges for Interstate 95 in Clarendon County - the most for any county on that highway - Clarendon County should be thriving in tourism marketing.

"There are 10 million vehicles per year coming through this corridor," he said. "We have the lake, real estate, wildlife and eco-tourism. We need to get out there and market ourselves better."

Myers has previous experience in marketing, having served as an event planner for Orangeburg's Regional Medical Center and as a marketing manager for Cox Industries in Orangeburg. A graduate of East Clarendon High School, she has a bachelor of arts degree in mass communication, with a minor in marketing, from Francis Marion University.

Monday was her first day.

"We're making plans and working on a comprehensive strategy to market Clarendon County as best we can to the outside world," Myers said. "It's still early yet, but I'm confident that we can bring more people, more businesses and more dollars into this county."

Myers said she hopes to use experiences from living at the beach to market the county.

"I lived at the beach for the past eight years, and I observed there that a lot of people living in these major metro areas, they crave small-town life," she said. "Clarendon can do a great job promoting that small-town life. And we can go further into these different areas where we may not have been promoted."

Myers said, for example, that Clarendon could be touted as a vacation destination for residents of larger communities like Myrtle Beach, Charleston and Greenville.

"It's hard to form close-knit relationships in these larger areas," Myers said. "And these places continue to grow, and it gets crowded, and the residents just want to get away. And they could get away to Clarendon for a visit, or they could decide to come here and live to get away from the congestion."

Myers said the lake can be a "huge draw."

"Going back to the beach, Surfside Beach used to be small like Manning, and it had the lure of the beach; we have the lake, and we are small as well, and now Surfside is too big and too crowded," she said. "The traffic is bad. You have people looking away from there for a more peaceful setting without all the traffic."

Floyd said that Myers, working from the chamber, will thus work to promote Clarendon County throughout the state, with an emphasis on getting visitors and businesses to the county.

"And then once she gets those people here, I will work in my position to keep them here by showing off our businesses and our assets," said Floyd. "We will be working closely together for the good of Clarendon County."

Prothro said Monday that he's pleased the county got behind the tourism department.

"My belief, and the chamber's belief, is we need to take a proactive stance on this, and by forming this department, that's what we are doing," he said. "Now that we have the resources to fund the department, we will work toward developing a plan and an organized county marketing program. Tiffany will be instrumental in executing that plan."