Spring, summer, fall — in downtown Washington plenty of people can be found who are visiting the town for the first time.

There’s a reason they’re drawn to Washington, and often that reason is the Washington Tourism Development Authority.

Lynn Davis has been director of WTDA for the past 14 years, and it’s her job to introduce people to Washington who may not have ever heard about this small, historic town on the Pamlico River. It’s part of what WTDA does, in addition to running the Washington Civic Center and partnering with the Washington-Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce to run the Visitors Center out of the chamber building on Stewart Parkway.

What many don’t know is that the City of Washington does not fund the tourism authority — funding for its work instead comes from a 6-percent occupancy tax on hotel rooms in the city. In 1991, the General Assembly passed legislation allowing cities to charge the tax to secure funding for the marketing and promotion of tourism in a given area.

“It is separate from the general tax dollars that are collected (by the city) from the residents,” Davis said. “Our money comes entirely from visitors that come to our community.”

WTDA operates as a separate department for the City of Washington and has its own seven-member board. The requirement for a board seat, according to the city’s language in devising the board, is that each member has “keen interest in tourism,” Davis said.

“We have a variety of people on our board who have that interest and most of them have direct ties to the industry we promote,” Davis said.

While the WTDA website is visible and has a calendar that stays up to date with community events, the role of Davis, and WTDA, largely happens behind the scenes, with marketing and promotion.

“When people see an article about Washington in a publication, they don’t realize how that happens. It’s all part of the effort that we’re doing to get our story out,” Davis said. “Any time you see Washington in Our State magazine, or Southern Living, or see Washington on a blog, that’s us.”

Davis said different ideas are pitched to different publications, depending on the tone of the publication. For example, working with the Waterway Guide, a cruising guide for boaters, Davis took the angle of reasons why a visit to Washington is worth a detour off the Intracoastal Waterway.

One of the things that makes Washington stand out is the North Carolina Estuarium, the only museum of its type. Other qualities were discovered in a community-wide brainstorming session several years ago, when WTDA invited stakeholders in the community and the general public to participate in helping the organization put a brand on Washington: what it was, exactly, that they thought was special about Washington that would draw visitors.

“We came to the conclusion out of that work that Washington should be promoted as a quaint, charming, friendly, little waterfront town — friendly being the key word,” Davis said.

WTDA does not stop at Washington, however. Davis said many people are unaware that visitor traffic to Washington spills over into surrounding towns, so it only makes sense to promote the whole package.

“We recognize that visitors are going to — while they’re here — are going to visit Belhaven or historic Bath or visit the Aurora Fossil Museum or take a ferry ride,” Davis said.

The end goal is to bring business to the area one visitor at a time, through dinners out, purchases made at shops, events attended and hotel or bed and breakfast stays overnight. And getting them here means telling them why they should come, Davis said: “What we’re trying to tell people is what makes us special and different than any other town in North Carolina.”