Local and state officials gathered Friday afternoon for a check presentation ceremony for a Tourism Enhancement Grant secured by Carter County earlier this year.

In April, the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development and the Tennessee Department of Tourism Development awarded Carter County a $51,400 grant to help provide wayfinding signage to allow visitors to more easily find local attractions.

On Friday, Tennessee Tourism Commissioner Kevin Triplett visited Carter County to meet with local officials and hold a check presentation for the grant.

“Tourism development is economic development,” Triplett said. “It also increases the quality of life to attract more businesses to Tennessee.”

For several years, the Tennessee Department of Tourism provided marketing grants to local communities to help them promote tourism. However, Triplett said, many communities had needs to be met before marketing could begin. The Department of Tourism didn’t have any “brick-and-mortar grants” to help communities get prepared to market their assets, Triplett said.

Through a partnership with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Triplett said over the past three years the two departments have been able to provide some of those “brick-and-mortar” type grants to communities, and the one received by Carter County is one of those grants.

The grant comes after DesignSensory completed an asset inventory for the county in 2016 and reported to the Carter County Commission that one of its greatest needs was Wayfinding Signage as some of its tourism assets were very difficult to find.

The grant will help pay for signage to direct visitors to attractions. Triplett said the state was pleased to award the grant to Carter County and that the project will fall in line with the needs already identified through the asset inventory study.

“Carter County is one of the most beautiful in the state, and blessed with so many natural resources,” Triplett said.