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Eyes on Mississippi
Tourism Hit Hard by Storm
W. F. MINOR
(Tlmes-Picnyine Staff Cor-'espon^fent)
JACKSON, Miss. - If you wanted to strike a blow at Mississippi’s greatest economic potential, you couldn’t hit’ the state a more crippling.; blow than the one delivered by Hurricane Camille.
In terms of population growth, per capita spending power, business investment and tourist development, the Gulf Coast is the brightest star in the state’s struggle to gain economic parity with other states in the union.
Tourism a few’ years ago replaced cotton as Mississippi’s greatest cash “crop” and the bulk of the tourist dollar coming into the state has been attracted by the year-round playground which the Gulf Coast provides.
Last year, for instance, travelers in Mississippi spent $284 million. A recent study showed that each tourist party adds about $6 to the personal income in Mississippi, and 13 cents from each dollar of travel-related sales are collected as some form of state taxes.
As a result of tourism, a $570 million business has arisen in Mississippi to cater to the traveling public. Much of this, of course, is—or was before Camille—concentrated on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Source of Taxes
Hurricane Camille has for all intents and purposes wiped out the tourist industry until next spring and greatly crippled it for three or four years, experts believe.
Aside from the tourist aspect of the Gulf Coast economy, it is the region on which the state of Mississippi depends for a great share of sales and income taxes which bolster the state general fund, and gasoline taxes which support the highway fund.
Harrison, Jackson and Han-cock Counties alone provide the state with more than $17 million in . sales taxes and about $2 million in income taxes per year. From these three counties, the state is getting about 12 per cent of all the revenues it col-1 lects.	|
Harrison and Jackson Counties represent two on the highest per capita income counties in the state and the lowest in terms of welfare payments.
Together, the cities of Biloxi, Gulfport, Pass Christian, Ocean Springs, Long Beach, fay St. Louis and Waveland last year turned over $400 million in sales of all kinds. Of j’ million went for food and beverages and services, which indicate the impact of tourism on the coast.
New Eia Dawns.
The crushing blow of Camille carries both pain and promise for the state of Mississippi. The entire region is still in a state of shock and suffering from the incredible loss of property and life.
But nobody—on the coast or elsewhere in Mississippi and nearby Louisiana—is going to think too long on what has been. They are already thinking of what there will be in the new era which the coast will face immediately.
The Gulf Coast is not to be come another Pompeii, to gain its place in history as a ruin, never to be rebuilt.
What the face of the Gulf Coast will look like when it is rebuilt is a subject which concerns many because of the magnitude of the rebuilding job.
At lear.t the opportunity that is now presented’to coast and state leadership to restore the area and make it even greater than before is indisputable and it will test man’s ability to rise from the ruins.