Quad Cities - Communities across America celebrate National Travel and Tourism Week from May 2-10 in order to shine a light on what travel means to jobs, economic growth, and personal well-being.

"Just look at the numbers.  Travel supports 15 million jobs in America, including almost 8,000 jobs right here in the Quad Cities," said Joe Taylor, president/CEO of the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau.  "This week, we are celebrating what travel means to our community as well as our 25th anniversary year, and we call on everyone?from elected officials to local residents?to join us in saluting this important industry."

Local travel employs a prosperous and diverse workforce, from airline and hotel employees, to restaurant, attraction and retail workers, and supports industry sectors such as construction, manufacturing and finance.  Over the last year, visitors spent over $800 million in the Quad Cities and generated over $12 million in local tax receipts.

The national figures are equally remarkable:

·        $2.1 trillion in economic output and $927.9 billion in direct travel-­?related spending in the U.S. by domestic and international travelers in 2014.

·        $141.5 billion generated in federal, state and local tax revenues in 2014.

·        15 million American jobs supported?8 million direct tourism jobs and 7 million indirect and induced jobs?good jobs with good pay that cannot be outsourced.

In the Quad Cities in 2014-2015, over 400 hotel rooms were added from four new hotels openings:  Holiday Inn Express & Suites and Holiday Inn & Suites in Davenport, Hilton Garden Inn in Bettendorf, and Holiday Inn Express in Moline.

Another new initiative from the Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau (QCCVB) is Quad Cities Museum Week on June 13-21 with 21 local museums involved offering events and activities.  Find the details at www.qcmuseumweek.com

Also the opening of the Quad-City Sports Hall of Fame on Wednesday in its new permanent location at Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport.  This is a collaborative effort between the Quad-City Times, Quad City Sports Commission, and Quad Cities River Bandits.

Travel can also have a positive effect on personal well-being.  A recent study by the U.S. Travel Association found that Americans left 429 million vacation days unused (the most in nearly 40 years) and forfeited $52.4 billion in time-off benefits.  If workers took just one more day off each year, travel would generate $73 billion annually for the economy.

The Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau staff has put together a new video for National Travel and Tourism Week highlighting a few of the fun places to go in the Quad Cities.

Video Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaKuTmzqW5Y

"Travel contributes to the fabric of America and continues to do wonders for our businesses and personal lives," said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, the umbrella organization representing the travel industry in the U.S.  "This weeklong celebration should extend to every day of the week to strengthen further our dynamic industry."

The QCCVB is the official tourism destination marketing and management organization for the Quad Cities region.  The organization serves the tourism interests of Scott County in Iowa and Rock Island, Mercer, Warren and Henderson Counties in Illinois. The QCCVB increases visitor expenditures and overnight stays through strategic sales, marketing, and services to customers, members and communities.  www.visitquadcities.com

BRUNSWICK, ME (05/06/2015)(readMedia)-- Maxwell Wolf, of Moline and a member of the Bowdoin College Class of 2015, received the Bowdoin Theater and Dance Department's 2015 William H. Moody '56 Award at the college's Honors Day ceremony held May 6, 2015.

Wolf is earning a major in Mathematics and a minor in Visual Arts.

Notable alumni include 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce (class of 1824), writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (both 1825), African-American newspaper editor John Brown Russwurm (1826), Civil War hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1852), Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary (1877), former Senate Majority Leader, architect of the Ireland peace accord and U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George J. Mitchell (1954), former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen (1962), and Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson (1979).

Can Parents Use Video Games As Lessons In Life?
Engineer, Parent & Former School Teacher Crafts Novel Method For Teachable Moments

In the history of child development, the widespread participation in the use of video games is not only a relatively new phenomenon, but a widespread one, too.

Ninety-seven percent of children and adolescents in the United States play at least one hour per day, according to the American Psychological Association.

Naturally, many parents and educators worry that this game time is subtracting from healthy skills children should be developing, such as reading.

"As children grow into teenagers and then young adults, finding your favorite novel as a young person, for example, can have immeasurable benefits by answering questions like: Who am I? What do I value? How do I move forward in life?" says Mark Cheverton (markcheverton.com), a former public school teacher of 15 years, an engineer with GE and a father who was inspired to write novels for his son and other children to help teach life lessons.

"Of course, books - whether print or digital versions - are the best sources for in-depth knowledge about anything, from gardening to history to science and more. Establishing reading as a habit is necessary for the well-being of the world."

Cheverton offers tips for parents who want to encourage healthy habits to their children, including reading and more.

•  Find books that reflect video game themes. "Invasion of the Overworld: Book One in the Gameknight999 Series: An Unofficial Minecrafter's Adventure," a book by Cheverton, is an effective example. What better way to get a kid to read a book than to offer one that's about the video games they are obsessed with? In this case, it's about the popular game Minecraft.

•  Parent participation can create additional teachable moments for issues like bullying. "I've come to love playing Minecraft with my son, who spent months building things on his server: castles, bridges, underwater cities, factories, everything and anything his imagination could conceive," Cheverton says. "Video games can have its benefits, too, creating opportunities to communicate with your child on those teachable moments we may dread, like when my son was bullied, but other habits ought to balance a child's life as well."

•  Computer gaming can have positive benefits with family relationships. It turns out that there has been plenty of research out there on the benefits of parents playing computer games with their kids - not by computer game makers, but by respected universities. Researchers from Arizona State University suggest that "Parents miss a huge opportunity when they walk away from playing video games with their kids." From Brigham Young University, researchers studied 287 families and looked at how they play video games together. The BYU team found that girls from ages 11 to 16, who played video games with a parent, reported better behavior, more feelings of family closeness and less aggression than girls who played alone or with friends. In addition, there is a great TED talk that discusses game playing and the positive effectives - both for family closeness and health.

•  Games like Minecraft may offer an interest in engineering, city planning, etc. Many children who take to games that entail building cities may naturally take an interest later in life in the details of building things in the real world. Of course, children who love video games may want to know how the games themselves work or are of a high quality, which can lead to further interest in technology. Whether it's a future career in video games, computer programming, engineering or a very long list of high-paying jobs, gaming can lead to good things.

About Mark Cheverton

Mark Cheverton (markcheverton.com) majored in physics and math as an undergraduate in college and went on to teach in public schools for 15 years. While teaching he earned a master's degree in physics. He later went on to work for GE's Global Research Center, where he researched laser welding , 3D printing, machine vision, process monitoring and machine control. He began writing his Minecraft series to help explain difficult lessons to his son, now 11. Those lessons include taking risks, a willingness to try something difficult and how to be brave. The books also address the sensitive topic of bullying.

Atlee Hendricks was a physician in the Quad Cities. Upon his death, a youth ensemble scholarship fund was created in his memory. Two Hendricks Scholarships have been awarded this season, one to an outstanding instrumentalist, the other to an outstanding vocalist.

Rivermont Collegiate is the Quad Cities' only Private College Prep School for PreSchool through 12^th Grade.

Visit: www.RivermontCollegiate.org