This week, the city of Selma and Dallas County as a whole received excellent economic news when it was reported lodging taxes for the year are up 18.2 percent over last year and that three locations within the county have been listed on a new Civil War Trail.

The two combined prove a well thought out, and well-targeted marketing and promotion plan on the part of the city’s tourism department and the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce is starting to pay off.

For those of us who call Selma and Dallas County home, we often forget about how historic and how attractive this area is to tourists.

For those of us who call Selma and Dallas County home, the Edmund Pettus Bridge’s place in our nation’s history is often relegated to the back of our minds, replaced by the fact it is just the quickest way to get over the Alabama River on a daily basis.

But, thankfully, there are those amongst us who know just how to get the message out that Selma and Dallas County is a beautiful, historic destination and a destination worth visiting.

By targeting areas of the Southeast using both the civil rights points of interest and those more closely tied to our area’s Civil War history those marketing our area have the ability to target a much-more diverse clientele than just focusing one item or the other.

Today we offer our congratulations to our tourism, business and marketing officials for the great results.

We are hoping for more good news in the future.