 The people at Visit Bemidji are hoping to persuade more tourists to come to town, so they're launching a big survey to figure out what exactly will draw them in. Lakeland News reporter Cheryl Moore has details. Did you know the last big visitor study done in Bemidji was 20 years ago in 1997? With all the growth the town has seen, it's safe to say we needed an update. The one that we are going to soon be launching, which is going to kick off early December, just in a few days, is actually called an interceptor survey. Six survey assistants will be all over Bemidji in the next 12 months, asking visitors why they come here. The 45 locations range from restaurants to stores and hotels, then of course to popular attractions like ski resorts and the Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues. We are working to build our leisure travelers and our business travelers increase the quantity of them so that we can offer a huge economic impact to the Bemidji community area. Now the whole point of this survey is to figure out why people come here, and hopefully with that data we'll figure out how to get more people to visit. It's also going to help us identify areas of interest for perhaps economic development and areas where perhaps the visitors would hope that we would have an expansion on our infrastructure. There's a simple way the community of Bemidji can help, and that's stay friendly. The best things about Bemidji is how we really have such spirit of our community and that we all are really effectively being ambassadors of our community. So there isn't per se any particular thing that the general public can do, except continue with their gracious welcoming good manners. Reporting in Bemidji, Sramar, Lakeland News. The full service will not be complete until after fall of 2018. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.