You may not know this person or
seen his pt cruisers and touring vans on the back roads of Vermont, but thousands of people traveling to Vermont are glad they did. You see, Kevin Lendway with his signature Donegal cap is the owner and operator of Mountain View Tours, a Tour company based in Vermont has been dubbed: “Mr. Vermont”, by many of his customers.
People come to Vermont from all over to get away from it all and unwind at a luxury resort far away. Searching the web,
calling the chambers often result in a simple call to a third generation Vermonter and tour guide for the past 6 years. I really enjoy my work, says: Kevin, ‘What a thrill to meet people of all ages, from all over the world and from al walks of life such as: farmers, mechanics, truckers, school teachers to doctors, writers, artists and politicians.” As far away as Cape Town, South Africa to addressing an audience of tour operators from Khuzestan Russia at a Vermont college., Kevin is more than up to the challenge.
Being raised the youngest of 5 boys and 2 sisters, we never had a dull moment. Cable TV didn’t exist growing up, we grew up in the city of Burlington but had chores, chickens, a steer and a garden that would feed half the city. That was a lot of work. I learned from experience, that if one had goals in life then we would strive and work hard to reach them. I always liked radio as a boy. What a surprise that one day working at a college station in the city of Burlington did I learn I was the first radio announcer to talk on Vermont’s first stereo rock station, I was only 16 at the time.
Vacations were the highlight of our summers. I realized that vacations mean a lot to people no matter who they are or where they come from. That was the ticket, I thought, to give people something memorable-an exciting Vermont vacation they will never forget. Though my Dad thought I cracked up, we worked hard on this endeavor, we dug and we researched town after town, village and village for something that was highly educational, informative as well as entertaining with fascinating Vermont history, folklore, legends and tales whether it be maple sugaring and covered bridges to the buried mummy in a Middlebury graveyard and the lost diamond ring in a small Vermont town owned by Buffalo Bill while hunting.. Or how they got the name Camel’s hump (Vermont’s 4th highest mountain) from Camel’s rump? Kevin has something for everyone. Why Kevin’s Father, a long-time Vermonter passes on many of the intriguing stories such as the name “dunder rock” that resembles a ship on Lake Champlain. What a great story that makes on a Burlington city tour!.
Unlike most Vermonters who prefer to stick close to home like Kevin’s father who barely left his living room chair, Kevin, strikes a common cord with most travelers. That is because he himself is also a tourists and a world-wide traveler who loves to take local tours. Each year over 600 million people travel internationally. Hundreds of millions more journey within their home country, doing so for both work and pleasure. As a result, the tourism industry—including hotels, resorts, airlines, travel agencies, and other businesses that cater to travelers—is described as “the world’s number one employer.”
Worldwide, tourism generates an estimated four trillion dollars annually. Individual tourists may not view themselves as part of a worldwide peace movement, but this is how the UN World Tourism Organization describes the industry. In 2004, Francesco Frangialli, secretary-general of the organization, told a presidential conference in the Middle East: “Tourism and peace are inseparable. The forces unleashed by tourism are so powerful that they can change apparently irreversible situations and bring about reconciliation where none was considered possible.”
When did you last say to yourself, ‘I need a vacation’? Perhaps you felt that you just had to get away from your everyday stresses. Have you ever traveled to some far away destination for a vacation? Consider this: As recently as just over a century ago, the majority of people on earth did not take regular vacations. Additionally, most spent their entire life within a few hundred miles of the spot where they were born. Travel to far-flung destinations for pleasure or education was the prerogative of a very small group of adventurous or wealthy individuals. But today hundreds of thousands of people are able to crisscross the country where they live or even the globe. What brought about the change?
After the industrial revolution, millions of people became involved in manufacturing goods and providing services. The result was greater earnings and eventually more disposable income. The forward leap in technology also created machines that took over much of the labor-intensive work. This afforded many people more leisure time. With these factors in place, in the mid-1900’s, the advent of more affordable mass transportation opened the floodgates of tourism. Then, by beaming images of far-off places into homes around the world, the newly invented mass communication industry stimulated the desire to travel.
The result was a rapidly expanding global tourism industry. The World Tourism Organization (WTO) forecast that the number of people traveling internationally would increase from 613 million in 1997 to 1.6 billion by the year 2020—with no slowdown in sight at the time. This upturn in demand was matched by a corresponding increase in the number of businesses, resorts, and countries providing services for tourists. So, Kevin of Mountain View Tours sees no slow down for quite sometime. Back in 1911, the first department of Tourism started here in Vermont and with the absence of well defined signs and outlawing of billboards on our States highways, someone has to take the bull by the horns and give travelers what they came to Vermont for, why not me?
For “Mr. Vermont”, of Mountain View Tours working for the number one industry has paid off. Ideally, tourism is a win-win arrangement. The consumer escapes his normal routine and is pampered, entertained, or educated. What better place to offer that than to visit scenic and historic Vermont? There is more to vacations than fine dining and plush resorts. Tour Operators are thus challenged to make an actual visit an outstanding experience while resorts provide the comforts of home. This has given rise to spectacular attractions and resorts. Consider, for example, one very large luxury hotel in the Bahamas. “The property has been designed to blow you away,” says Beverly Saunders, director of organization development at the hotel. “But we aim to go further. We want your interaction with our hosts to blow you away also.” How do such resorts cater to the needs of their guests? We must have foods available that our guests are accustomed to eating at home. But if their experience is to be memorable, we must also offer exotic dining and recreational opportunities. That’s where Mr. Vermont “ of Mountain View Tours enters the picture, “Of all the factors which determine real pleasure and enjoyment while traveling, there is no other factor more important than the way guests are treated by the local people and the feeling of security which they experience.”
But it is very challenging to be outgoing, pleasant, and smiling on the job all the time. That is why “Mr. Vermont” instills the need to approach whatever the role we play with the same professionalism that would characterize a doctor, an attorney, or an insurance agent. We use uncompromising standards for every function that makes up the overall tourist experience. The harder we work as a Vermont tour guide in achieving these standards, the more seamless and consistently higher the level of performance will be.”
In recent years, concerns about safety and security have taken a serious toll on the travel industry, and these must eventually be addressed. How they will affect the growth of modern tourism in the long run remains to be seen.
Still, the next time you decide to get away from it all and unwind at a resort far away. Remember that Stowe, Vermont has plenty to choose from. But if you want to have the complete Vermont experience, than: “Mr. Vermont”, of Mountain View tours in Stowe, may just be what the doctor all along has ordered….
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