Mr. Clive Jones, Principal of Knowledge Based Consulting Group in San Francisco, which specializes in economics of destination resorts encouraged me to write a few lines about the tourism industry and how Online Land Planning strategies might apply.

Imagine This.

A close knit Italian family that owns 400 hectares in the wine province of Avellino, a Sierra Leone businessman who wants to develop a unique tourist resort around the diamond industry to boast his country’s economy, a reclusive rancher who discovered water on his property and wants to create an sustainable guest experience in New Mexico and a small village near Jiamusi, China trying to get a micro loan for a cultural tourist destination to host international artists. These opportunities all exist. But unless these property owners have a simple and affordable way to assimilate into the seemingly huge resort industry mainstream, they will be forever discouraged.

Awakening Opportunity.

My sense is that there are literally thousands of individual property owners around the world who believe that they own a ‘sure fire’ resort destination attraction. Often they already possess a ‘big vision’ for what success looks like , but lack the real estate development experience, financial resources and access to professional land planning services to get started. Most will wander onto internet intermittently looking for help, but then will eventually realize without a simple and affordable approach that their land is probably destined to remain fallow and underutilized.

Land. Plan. Test. Fit.

Without spending a ton of money or getting involved in a complicated and overbearing development process, let’s make it easy to get to the first step. A simple site plan and program with area tabulations can often unlock immediate financial value and become a catalyst for investor participation. With some basic site information provided by the property owner, a skilled land planner and graphic designer can accomplish a good portion of this initial work remotely using the internet, email, Google Earth, Skype, and the telephone. At Online Land Planning we do this successfully on a regular basis. By manifesting salient land plan in a recognizable and credible way that can be shared with bankers, investors, developers, operators, contractors and government agencies – a definitive process of moving forward can be quantified and the next steps of the project can be handled locally adding to the economy and creating jobs.

Rick Abelson

Director
Online Land Planning, LLC
www.onlinelandplanning.com