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Final Report March 1997 Current and Potential Attractions San Marcos has much to offer visitors. Our attractions can be classified in tenns of five types: 1) Natural, 2) Cultural and Ethnic; 3) Special Created Events; 4) Historic; and 5) Man-Made (Weaver and Wishard-Lambert, 1996: 83). Natural attractions include the San Marcos River, the cave at Wonder World, and the springs at Aquarena. The San Marcos Fine Arts Center, musical concerts and stage perfonnances at SWT and the San Marcos High School, and events such as Cinco de Mayo are examples of our cultural and ethnic attractions. Special created events often use one or more previously mentioned classifications as their themes. San Marcos is particularly blessed with a wide range of annual events such as Camaval! San Marcos Style, Tours of Distinction, Texas Natural Weekend and Western Swing Festival, Juneteenth Celebration, and the previously mentioned Cinco de Mayo, among others. San Marcos is also fortunate to have a number of historic attractions such as the Hays County Court House, First United Methodist Church, San Antonio and Belvin streets, and the Charles S. Cock Museum. Finally, we have man-made attractions which pull in many, many visitors such as the outlet malls, SWT and our historic downtown. (A representative list of our current tourism attractions is found in the Appendices of this report). While San Marcos has much to offer visitors, we can, as a community, do much better in developing attractions in our town which both entice visitors and improves our quality of life. What follows is a narrative presenting a number of possible current product enhancements and some suggestions for future product development. This list is not exhaustive, but illustrative and suggestive. Enhancement of Existing Products Some of our possible tourism products would not have to be created from scratch but could be developed from already existing sites and attractions. We have not used what we have to offer to our fullest advantage nor have we protected our heritage as much as has been warranted. San Marcos River The San Marcos River is the true center of our community. It is what originally brought settlers and visitors to this area. Yet, our river and adjacent parkland could be more attractive. Improved stewardship ofthe river would benefit both residents and visitors. Our river needs to be more regularly cleaned oflitter, river banks need to be improved and landscaped, and our river parks need to be better connected to our downtown and our new recreation center and library. Aquarena Wetlands Project Paula Williamson and Melani Howard, both of SWT, are developing a Wetlands Project for Aquarena Springs. The Wetlands Project is a major part of an effort to preserve and Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Tourism Development Page 10