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Letter to the editor: Book Local

Posted on December 3, 2008December 3, 2008 by Staff

We’ve heard the term Buy Local, but what about Book Local?

In the best of times, the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Center dedicates itself to bringing outsiders in, encouraging the kind of tourism that benefits all of us in myriad ways, from keeping our businesses alive to feathering our tax base. But these aren’t the best of times, and so we find ourselves going at our job from the other side of the curtain: encouraging the insiders not to go out.

When we locals take our educational events, our government meetings, our weddings or bar mitzvahs outside of Orange County we’re essentially robbing ourselves. It hurts the local economy in the same way it does when we don’t buy local: our taxes end up in another municipality and our standard of living is directly affected. Many of our grocery stores sell produce grown by local farmers, and we all understand how we benefit by purchasing it: it’s fresher, usually organic, hauled in from five miles away instead of five hundred, which means less gas consumed, less pollution – and we’re supporting our own.

Bring this same perspective to the other businesses that are owned and operated in Orange County. Have your Stay-cation here. Orange County has something for everybody, after all, and in these harsh economic times everybody needs everybody. From the doorman at the Siena Hotel to the service staff at Carolina Inn to every clerk and cook on Weaver and Main Streets, we’re as interdependent as the threads on a spider’s web. We’re a team, no different, in essence, than the way the Tar Heels are a team. Can you imagine cheering for anybody else? When we bring that same support and enthusiasm to those who live and work in Orange County, we all win.

For helpful hints, call the Visitors Bureau at 919-968-2060 and ask for help in coordinating your next event.

Laurie Paolicelli
Executive Director
Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau

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