King plugs tourism promotion targeting Maine Highlands area

BANGOR – With just six more months in office, Gov. Angus King tried his hand at meteorology this week, predicting “strong fronts of tourists” making their way to the newly named Maine Highlands.

The mock weather report, in which King stands in front of a state map with dollar signs on Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, is part of a tourism promotion package for the two-county region.

“We’re giving an identity to a region that has not had one,” said King, who by video telephone conference Tuesday afternoon urged local forecasters to use the highlands designation to help raise public awareness of the promotion.

The two-county region, commonly referred to as Penquis, had suffered from a tourism identity crisis, according to John Holden, a senior development specialist with the Eastern Maine Development Corp., which commissioned the September 2000 study that led to the Maine Highlands promotion.

The study concluded that the region, despite its plentiful natural resources and outdoor activities, lagged behind other similar regions in terms of tourism dollars.

In 1999, only 7 percent of the lodging sales in the state were in Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, according to Holden. Of the 8.3 million visitors to Maine in 1997, only 1.2 million visited Penquis and fewer than 1 million stayed overnight.

The Maine Highlands region encompasses the heart of northern and central Maine, from Bangor in the south to the Chamberlain Lake region in the north and from Moosehead Lake in the west to Pleasant Lake in the east. It is an area almost the size of Massachusetts.

At the Tuesday event, Holden also unveiled the Maine Highlands Web site, www.themainehighlands.com.

For more information, call (800) 91-MOOSE.