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Western Montana tourism group works on new stewardship plan

by MONTE TURNER
Mineral Independent | June 5, 2024 12:00 AM

Thursday evening in the St. Regis Community Center, Racene Friede, president and CEO of Western Montana’s Glacier Country, held a town hall meeting to listen to the residents of Mineral County regarding visitors and tourism to the area.  

She also discussed a stewardship plan for the region, which was developed as a result of town hall meetings in 2021.  

“When things went kind of topsy-turvy back in 2020, we had this huge influx of people to Montana during the pandemic, and it was overwhelming,” she said to a small audience. “That was at a time when our communities didn’t have the capacity to take on all of those people. Businesses that were allowed to remain open were operating on a skeleton staff. Housing started to spike. We knew at that time if we needed to look at our mission, which was a marketing position to promote western Montana to visitors coming from out of state, to do something different. Through a series of meetings and strategic planning, we realized that we needed to focus on our residents and our quality of life, first and foremost.” 

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