Tourism Talk | Could fast food save welcome centers in South Carolina?

Welcome to South Carolina. Can I take your order?

That's what travelers might hear at the Little River Welcome Center if the S.C. Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism were to let in private operators such as fast food restaurants. PRT is open to the idea in Little River and is willing to discuss its options with regulators and interested businesses, spokesman Marion Edmonds said.

Cash-strapped PRT had largely ruled out private options to support its nine welcome centers because of federal restrictions on interstate rest stops, Edmonds said. The Little River Welcome Center could prove to be an exception because it is not on an interstate, Edmonds said.

The state-run welcome centers give out information on what an area has to offer and double as rest areas, equipped with restrooms, picnic tables and dog parks.

Allowing restaurants, gas stations and convenience stores into rest stops isn't new, according to a report by nonprofit news website Stateline.org. Food and gas vendors were banned from rest stops along interstates in 1960, as part of the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act. Those stops built before 1960 - mostly along older thoroughfares in the Northeast or parts of the Midwest - were grandfathered in and today often resemble mini-malls with multiple restaurants and retailers.

These rest stops often make money for their state governments. By contrast, South Carolina's welcome centers cost the state about $1.87 million annually.

The state only stands to benefit from revenue from the centers, and there are few downsides to allowing private businesses to operate, said Rich Harrill, director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Travel and Tourism Center at the University of South Carolina.

"When budgets are this tight, it's a good thing," Harrill said. "I think it's a sound business thing to do if done carefully and done prudently."

The state would need to look to other areas that allow private businesses to operate at rest stops and establish best practices to ensure there is fair competition for the limited space, he said.

Facing $5.6 million in budget cuts, PRT in July asked not-for-profits such as chambers of commerce and convention and visitors bureaus to step up and operate the centers. It didn't make sense to consider the Little River center separately at the time because it was the only center not on an interstate, Edmonds said.

North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce President and Chief Executive Marc Jordan said in August that he supports multiple private businesses operating a center, possibly under the oversight of a nonprofit such as the chamber. Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce President Brad Dean suggested a similar plan.

PRT would be willing to sit down with federal regulators and interested private businesses to try to work out an arrangement, Edmonds said. Even if such an arrangement were ultimately allowed, a center such as Little River would likely need to be renovated or expanded to house private businesses, he said.

Private businesses are likely to remain out of the question for the other eight centers off interstates, he said.

"It would require a change in federal legislation, not anything done at the state level," Edmonds said.