ORONO – The state university system’s new tourism research center has launched a Web site designed to keep towns and businesses up to date on one of Maine’s biggest industries.

Harold Daniel, director of the Center for Tourism Research and Outreach – CenTRO for short – said the Web site can be used by any company, organization, person or community interested in increasing its tourism.

It is not a Web site for travelers, he said.

“We are a research organization, producing knowledge with which we can help develop strategies that the [state] Office of Tourism, as well as local and regional leaders, can use to attract tourists,” Daniel said.

The site comes just six months after the center opened as part of the University of Maine System. “This was the most important thing on our to-do list,” Daniel said. “So we accomplished it first.”

CenTRO’s offices are in the University of Maine’s Business School at Orono.

“The laboratory at the Business School is the hub of everything,” Daniel said. “But it is reliant upon research and cooperation from all seven [UMS] campuses.”

According to the site, the value of tourism to Maine has resulted in a need for addressing tourism’s complicated issues, such as market analysis and promotion, land-use planning, geographic distribution, public-private cooperation, coastal and inland resource development and integration of tourism with other community development strategies.

Daniel said such a site will always be a work in progress. Success stories and lessons from various parts of the state will be added.

CenTRO is also looking forward to having a place on every campus within the University of Maine System where people can get involved.

For information about CenTRO, contact Kimberly Junkins at 581-3102. Visit the Web site at: www.umaine.edu/centro.