Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce visitor center won't be staffed this summer

Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce won’t be staffing the visitor center at Marantette Park this summer. Instead the chamber is focusing on the new visitor center at Belton Depot, a collaboration among local chambers of commerce.

Last year was the first time the chamber collaborated on the visitor center. This summer the Whitefish Chamber and Convention and Visitor Bureau, Kalispell Convention and Visitor Bureau and the Bigfork Chamber are collaborating on the center.

The Columbia Falls Chamber found that the West Glacier visitor center received four times the amount of traffic in half the time compared to traffic at the Columbia Falls visitor center.

So instead the Columbia Falls center will be open as a 24-hour information kiosk. The chamber is working on getting a secure door plan for the interior.

The details are still in the works, but the chamber plans to leave the front vestibule open and move the brochures to the deck area, Johnson said.

A state grant allowed the visitor center be staffed last summer, but the center only saw four to five people per day. The change in times and technology means that not many people are stopping at that center to get information, Chamber President Mark Johnson said. Periodically the center will be open when someone is working there.

“We’ll see how this goes for this year, but I think that it will serve the needs,” said Chamber Executive Director Stacey Schnebel last week.

The West Glacier visitor center is staffed by the Glacier National Park Conservancy who are trained on the surrounding communities and will distribute information at the center. They’ll be pushing people out of Glacier to help with the congestion in the Park, Schnebel said.

Improvements at the center include a new slide show of local areas and information on chamber members. There’ll be new handouts to encourage people to stay the night in the area. Also, an event bulletin will feature two to three events per week. Schnebel requests businesses send her event details for the summer.

The visitor center in West Glacier will be open from Memorial Day through Labor Day, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

However, the conservancy staff will stay there until the last visitor leaves, Schnebel said.