Last month, I had the opportunity to attend the City Nation Place Americas Conference in Vancouver, B.C., alongside regional partners from across Thurston County.
I attended as a board member of both the Thurston Economic Development Council and Experience Olympia & Beyond, together with colleagues from Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, Port of Olympia and other regional partners.
On the surface, conferences like this are about tourism, branding, placemaking and economic development, and they are, but what struck me most was more than simply hearing success stories from other regions. It was hearing them together alongside and with my regional colleagues. Big ideas rarely move because of one person or one agency. They move when coalitions are built, and they begin pulling in the same direction. That’s the real value and power of regional alignment.
Economic development today is different than it was a generation ago. Communities no longer compete only on infrastructure or tax policy. Increasingly, they compete on identity, quality of life, culture and the ability to create experiences that make people want to visit, invest and establish roots. That type of work requires real coordination.
Counties, cities, tourism organizations, ports, chambers of commerce, nonprofits and private industry all have pieces of the puzzle. When those pieces operate independently, progress is fragmented and often stagnates. But when regional partners begin hearing the same ideas, sharing the same goals, and reinforcing one another’s work, momentum starts to build. That’s what I saw in Vancouver, and it’s what we need to build here in Thurston County.
One of the clearest examples of this approach is the work being done through the Thurston County Lodging Tax Advisory Committee, commonly known as LTAC, a committee I’ve had the opportunity to chair for three cycles.
Most people have seen lodging tax without realizing what it is. When you stay in a hotel, motel, or short-term rental, a small portion of that bill is collected as lodging tax. Those dollars are then reinvested specifically into tourism promotion, events, facilities, and activities that bring visitors into the community.
That distinction matters; these aren’t your local property tax dollars being redirected from core services. These are dollars generated by visitors from outside the region and specifically reinvested back into activities that stimulate additional economic activity.
Every visitor dollar spent here is a dollar imported into the local economy.
That matters for restaurants, retailers, local businesses, and workers. It also matters because tourism and socio-cultural economic activity create energy inside a community. Festivals, events, entertainment, recreation, and cultural experiences aren’t just amenities. They are economic drivers that, when done well, also make communities better places to live.
One county project I’m particularly proud of is the renewed focus and strategic recalibration of the Thurston County Fairgrounds. For years, many people viewed the fairgrounds primarily as a once-a-year facility centered around the county fair. But recently, we made a strategic decision to invest in broader utilization of the site through the hiring of a dedicated fairgrounds and event center manager, and that investment is already paying dividends. The facility is seeing increased bookings, expanded programming, stronger agricultural connections, and greater year-round activity. Revenue generation has improved, community use has expanded, and the fairgrounds are increasingly becoming a regional gathering place rather than simply an annual event site.
The momentum created by this strategic investment has opened additional opportunities. Recently, Thurston County secured more than $1.25 million in combined state and federal funding to construct the Thurston County Fairgrounds Evacuation and Agricultural Center. This project will support youth agriculture programs, livestock evacuation during disasters, community events, and emergency preparedness operations. It’s a perfect example of what good public investment should look like: one facility serving multiple purposes.
The best public investments serve more than one purpose. During good times, the facility supports economic activity, agriculture, youth programs, and entertainment. During emergencies, it strengthens regional resilience and public safety. That kind of thinking only happens when organizations and leaders are communicating, coordinating, and building trust together over time.
There’s another important principle at work here: tourism promotion and placemaking are sometimes dismissed as secondary priorities, but that misses the bigger picture entirely. When you create a place people want to visit, you also create a place where people want to live. The same amenities that attract visitors improve quality of life for residents. The same events that bring in tourism dollars also strengthen community identity and local pride. The same investments that support economic activity also create spaces where families gather; businesses open, and people establish roots. That’s not accidental, that’s strategic.
What I took away most from the City Nation Place conference wasn’t simply new ideas. It was reinforcement of something many of us have already been working toward locally: the understanding that regional cooperation matters. No city, county, or organization succeeds entirely on its own anymore. The communities that thrive in the coming decades will be the ones capable of building coalitions, aligning priorities, and telling a shared story about who they are and where they’re going.
And increasingly, that story matters economically as much as it does culturally.
Momentum is built collectively and once communities begin moving in the same direction, the possibilities become far greater than any one jurisdiction could accomplish alone.
Next column, I’ll write more about the concept of “placemaking” itself; the idea that communities can intentionally build identity, pride, and economic resilience by creating places people genuinely want to belong to.
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Wayne Fournier is a Thurston County commissioner and former mayor who has spent more than three decades working in public safety. His column appears in The Chronicle twice each month.
