News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville and Putnam County have created an updated visitors guide to encourage experience-driven tourism and showcase the city’s local businesses.
Tourism Director Shan Stout said the guide had not been updated since 2019 and many of the businesses listed had either moved or gone out of business. She said the new guide more closely favors a magazine, featuring articles and photography that highlights all that Putnam County has to offer.
“We’ve tried to write it in a way that’s going to be long-lasting,” Stout said. “So for instance, the fact that we are listing our waterfalls, those are not likely to change. We are listing our state parks. Those are not going to change, and the articles are talking about experience-driven vacations here.”
Stout said the guide includes QR codes that readers can scan to get to online guides for specific attractions. She said those guides provide them a list of activities and can be updates as time passes, keeping the physical guide from becoming outdated quickly.
“Often times, they’ve kind of pre-planned their vacation a little bit, but they may miss some places,” Stout said. “So this is a way for them to see all of the things that they can do here, and sometimes, they’ll even extend their vacation because they see some stuff they didn’t know about in the first place.”
She said the primary goal of the new and improved guide is to attract as many tourists to the city as possible. She said whether people are coming into town to enjoy the historic west side or work their way through the top 50 waterfalls, the money their lodging expenditures and the sales tax revenue they generate are high valuable to Cookeville residents.
“That makes my job very very worthwhile, to help the residents of Putnam County a much-needed tax relief,” Stout said.
