By Peter Heerwagen

What has one of the 100 Best Small Art Towns in America been up to lately? Growing its tourist trade, of course. And Berkeley Springs has been doing it with a point and click strategy, using the Internet to generate interest in the small town in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountain range.

But you need a critical mass of tourist to lure people. While Berkeley Springs may not have the quaintness of Shepherdstown's German Street, it has a growing base of arts, crafts and gift shops, health-related stores and antique emporiums. And through its five spas, the town which bills itself as "the country's first spa", finds itself in the relaxation business, catering to persons living stressful lives to the east.

As Jill Klein Rone, the person in charge of public relations for the Winter Festival of Waters, said, "We like to say there are three times as many massage therapist here as there are lawyers. Even if we get more lawyers, we'll get more therapists."

Every couple of years, John Villani updates his book "100 Best Small Arts Towns in America," and Berkeley Springs is one of the only 17 towns to have appeared in all three editions. "He has a hard time denying us because we keep doing more stuff," said Rone, who with husband J.W. Rone, owns New World Theater, an entertainment troupe. Both helped the Morgan County Arts Council convert an abandoned cold storage building into an arts center called the Ice House.

"The Eastern Panhandle is growing fast and so is tourism," said Rone. She ticked off new business openings in the last year-Fleur-De-Lis Art Gallery, a totally West Virginia shop; Simple Gifts, featuring edible West Virginia products; and Mountain Laurel Crafts, which expanded to a larger location.

About a year ago, the Rones' own daughter, Happy, purchased Whisperwood Studio and changed the name to Jules-Enchanting Gifts and Collectibles (her given name is Jules). A natural food store is moving from nearby Hancock to the former Sandy's News Agency, and a fine dining restaurant will soon open, featuring a late night supper bar.

And then there's Atasia Spa, started last year by veteran massage therapist Frankie Tan who has given over 10,000 massages in Berkeley Springs. He set up his shop in the former News building, a 3,500-square-foot, two story Victorian structure a block from the center of town. One of his specialties is a mud wrap that uses Dead Sea materials filled with special minerals and other ingredients to help muscle relaxation and improve circulation, to detoxify and rejuvenate the skin.

The other four spas in and around Berkeley Springs are Coolfont's Spectrum Spa, The Country Inn's Renaissance Spa, the Bath House Massage and Health Center, and the Berkeley Springs State Park.

Playing on the theme, on a weekend in late January, Berkeley Springs holds a Spa Feast offering free samples of spa and health-related items. This comes one month before the well-publicized Toast to the Tap, the international water tasting competition held at Coolfont.

Sally Marshall, a federal government retiree who owns the Berkeley Springs Antique Mall, is president of 73-member Travel Berkeley Springs. "Our goal is simply to improve the economics of the town by increasing tourism. It's gone up by 35% in the last three years. We've increased our advertising budget and have received state matching funds".

"We are running high occupancy rates all year in our lodging, not just during the summer and fall. On many weekends it's difficult to find a room. And all of the lodging places are locally owned and operated, so the money stays here and is not going to some corporate office in New York City or Nevada. Not only do they create charm, but they're economically good.

When ask where the tourist come from, Marshall said "about 70% of them are from the DC metro area and the second biggest group is from Baltimore, which is in the 10% to 15% range."

The World Wide Web is driving tourists to Berkeley Springs. We've reallocated our advertising budget to the Internet presence," said Marshall. We're becoming a wired town, and both the current and potential market are wired. We have a great deal of talent here who are Internet savvy.

"We started on the Internet three years ago, when se said to ourselves, 'look, let's try it for a year and see how it goes.' As we went along we've become more sophisticated." Intrepid Technologies in Shepherdstown hosts the www.berkeleysprings.com site, while Citynet designed the Web page when it was known as MarCom before it was acquired by City Holding Corporation, parent of Blue Ridge Bank.

Marshall said two businesses, Coolfont Recreation and Mountain Laurel Crafts are getting into e-commerce, selling goods over the Internet. Berkeley Springs will receive a professional development grant from the West Virginia Commision on Arts to put area artists on the Internet along with samples of their pictures.

For a number of years, tourism articles on Berkeley Springs have been synonymous with Jeanne Mozier, who with husband Jack Soronen owns the Star Theatre. "I do all the writing" she said. "I keep a tight control on the town's image."

Mozier has put a number of her articles on the town's Web site, along with a treasure tour, which is a virtual tour of Berkeley Springs State Park. "People don't get Berkeley Springs," she said. "Some people think its a resort. They don't understand you can walk to everything. Having a park in the center makes a tremendous difference in how the town feels-they can see it."

Mozier agreed with Marshall that the Internet has affected the town's lodging industry. "For $20.00 ayear you can join Travel Berkeley Springs and get on our Web site for free," she said. Then join the virtual cities site (www.virtualcities.com), and they'll design up to two pages for just $75.00 a year. We link into Virtual Cities."

Virtual Cities, also known as First Travelers Choice, is a privately run travel site on the Internet that will give a locality its own designation if ten or more businesses sign up. It focuses on bed and breakfasts, country inns and small hotels throughout the United States. Eighteen Morgan County establishments are listed, more than any jurisdiciton in the Quad-state region.

Sandra Kauffman, co-owner of the Highlawn Inn bed and breakfast, is a big booster of Virtual Cities. "They market it at all the travel locations on the Internet. She (the webmaster) really advertises it. It has been an incredible success for us. We don't do anymore print advertising."

Said Mozier: "More and more people are using the Internet, particularly young people. They think Internet, not print. We're seeing a lot of people in their 20s and 30s, who are just learning about getting away for the weekend. Berkeley Springs is not far from metro DC, and it is not expensive. We emphasize the spas, which we call "Ancient Healing for the New Millennium."

And, in keeping with the themes of water and relaxation, young tourists want jacuzzis and hot tubs. A few years ago Kauffman installed a whirlpool at her renovated carriage house at the Highlawn Inn, and in the last year Peg Perry added three rooms to her Maria's Garden and Inn, one with double jacuzzi. "Most of our guests were asking, 'do you have fireplaces and jacuzzi's', so we built them in to give things people were asking for," said Perry. "The room with double Jacuzzi is always rented as is the tub with shower and whirlpool jets."

Travel Berkeley Springs runs ads in the Washington Post and Washingtonian Magazine with its Web site URL. About one and one-half years ago, it hired a person to work Monday, Friday and Saturday at the chamber of commerce to handle tourist calls. "Because we get so many e-mails and phone messages, it's now four days a week," said Mozier. "These people calling have seen our Web site; it's saving us a lot of mailing expenses."

To meet the increased tourist demand for lodging, a number of small-scale establishments are popping up in Morgan County offering one or two rooms or a cabin or two. "We have at least a dozen of them," said Mozier. Helping in this regard is the fact that without zoning in Morgan County, it is easy to go into the lodging business. And through the Internet, marketing costs are affordable for small operations, much less expensive than advertising in metro DC print media.

Marshall agreed that the Internet is playing a large part in the growth of tourism in Berkeley Springs. "Somewhere between 50%-70% of the bookings comes out of the Internet," she said. Perry indicated her Maria's Garden gets "a lot of calls off the Internet and generates more business there than from the print advertising."

Mozier said the downtown has developed a good mix of business and there are no vacancies along Washington Street, the main commerical area. "You can't find space in town; people are opening up businesses two and three blocks away. The only thing we need to add to the mix is a Chinese restaurant and more rooms. I'd love to see another hotel downtown like the Country Inn."

After a bit of a spat with Berkeley County tourist officials over the direction of the George Washington Trail, Mozier said the regional, Eastern Panhandle board has equal representation amount the three counties, and the trail now goes through Berkeley Springs to Paw Paw. "We get a say in what is said about Washington in Morgan County. He owned land here and in Great Cacapon, and traveled through Paw Paw on his way to Cumberland."

Another issue for Berkeley Springs is the long talked about U.S. 522 bypass around the town on its way from Winchester to Hancock. Said Mozier: "The travel council is on record supporting it, as long as the design takes into account the preservation of tourism.

"Some individual businesses are not so hot on it. They're convinced there's a lot of drive-through business. The design is supposed to be done by next year; however, there is no money in the current five-year highway spending budget for the bypass."