Four southcentral Kentucky cities are working to be more appealing to ecotourists in conjunction with a project intended to link Warren, Barren, Edmonson and Hart counties to Mammoth Cave National Park with a network of trails.

The designation of Trail Town – which Cave City, Park City, Brownsville and Munfordville are all working to attain – provides prestige and advertising on Kentucky Tourism’s website and is expected to bring more people into the area to take advantage of adventure tourism offerings, according to Sharon Tabor, director of the Cave City Tourist and Convention Commission.

Tabor is spearheading Cave City’s effort to gain the certification from Kentucky Tourism.

“Part of it is to fulfill a vision to make this area an outdoor tourism community,” she said of the Trail Town designation.

Cave City needs to make some changes before it can be granted Trail Town status, with the main one being the establishment of a trailhead, Tabor said.

A trailhead is an entry point for a trail that would ideally include places for tourists to park, pick up bicycles, charge their phones and get food, water and information about the area, she said.

Cave City already meets certain other criteria, such as proximity to a medical facility, camping facilities and overnight lodging, Tabor said.

Cave City officials, including Tabor and Mayor Dwayne Hatcher, and local business owners have been working to establish committees dedicated to goals such as putting up signs to help tourists navigate the town, applying for grants and other funding, raising public awareness and mobilizing merchants to offer goods that would appeal to tourists.

“The process really hinges on the community,” Tabor said.

While Cave City’s Trail Town certification project is separate from similar efforts in Park City, Brownsville and Munfordville, there has been collaboration between the communities. All four efforts ultimately tie into Cave Country Trails, a project that aims to establish a trail network connecting the national park with Barren, Warren, Edmonson and Hart counties.

Cave Country Trails Director Helen Siewers said CCT has worked with local Trail Town efforts by providing the cities involved with information about existing trails in their areas, which is necessary for Trail Town applications, as well as gathering public input on local trails and identifying potential future trails that might make the area more appealing.

“We’re all working toward the same goal,” she said.

This goal, she said, is establishing a regional trail network that connects the four participating counties to Mammoth Cave in the hopes of cultivating ecotourism.

The Trail Town certification program, in a way, is a natural extension of the original mindset that led to the first guided tours of Mammoth Cave to be conducted in 1816, Siewers said.

“In some ways, the Trail Town programs are the next logical step,” she said.

Having spent more than a year gathering information and public input, CCT is still in the process of setting the project’s priorities, which would include building new trails to complete an interconnected network through the four participating counties, Siewers said.

“We’ve identified three to four (potential) projects per county,” she said. “They mostly focused on areas between these Trail Town communities and Mammoth Cave National Park.”

Rhonda Clements, executive director of the Edmonson County Tourism Commission, said Brownsville has been working on attaining a Trail Town certification for about a year and hopes to have it by the end of 2017.

Although most of Mammoth Cave National Park, including its main entrance, is in Edmonson County, Brownsville often doesn’t benefit from the park’s tourists, Clements said. This is because the exits people use to get to Mammoth Cave from Interstate 65 are in Park City and Cave City, both located in Barren County, she said.

“It is a challenge because most of our community is in a horseshoe shape in the back of Mammoth Cave National Park,” she said.

Its location relative to both Mammoth Cave and I-65 has long been “one of our largest obstacles,” Clements said.

By attaining Trail Town status, Clements hopes Brownsville can get a reputation for being a town with plenty of opportunities for adventure tourism.

“We’re hoping this would help people come over into the community and stay with us longer and spend money and such,” she said. “We hope it’ll increase our overnight stays and increase our visits to our local eateries.”

Seth Wheat, spokesman for Kentucky Adventure Tourism, said the main requirement for a city to apply for Trail Town status is proximity to a trail, which can include a designated waterway.

There are 16 Trail Towns in Kentucky, primarily located in the eastern part of the state, according to a Kentucky Tourism website.

The promotion Trail Towns get from Kentucky Tourism provides “branding” that makes them easier for potential tourists to find, Wheat said.

“We want them to benefit from their location next to these outdoor resources,” he said.

A Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism document that lays out the criteria for achieving Trail Town status said cities designated as Trail Towns will be “marketed by the Kentucky Department of Travel and Tourism as adventure tourism destinations on state maps, visitors’ guides and other state promotional material.”

“We want people to take pride in their communities and work to get trails,” Wheat said, adding that roughly 30 cities across the state are working toward Trail Town designations.

“We are very slowly filling out all our big tourism areas and that, to me, is very exciting,” he said.

Park City started working toward a Trail Town certification in January, according to Mayor Shannon Crumpton.

“We are hoping that we bring more people to us,” she said. “People know Mammoth Cave but they don’t know Park City.”

Crumpton said she hopes Park City’s small-town feel will be appealing for tourists and that bringing more people into town will be a boon for the local business sector.

Munfordville has been working toward a Trail Town certification for about a year and a half and expects to get it soon, said Coni Shepperd, executive director of the Munfordville Tourism Commission.

The effort in Munfordville has focused largely on getting bike racks and an information kiosk for tourists to use, she said.

“All we have to do now is get the official OK,” she said.

Shepperd has been happy to share information with Cave Country Trails and other cities seeking Trail Town status, she said.

“When one of us gets it, it just helps the others,” she said.