Wichita ? Tourism and convention-going in Wichita is about to become more glamorous or at least that’s what the Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau is working toward.

The bureau is taking steps to bring to life an ambitious tourism plan consultant Alf Nucifora wrote in 2000, bureau president John Rolfe said.

Some of the directions the agency will be pushing:

Develop an aviation festival for 2002. It will be aimed at manufacturers, pilots and fans. It could, ultimately, become a weeklong event similar to the annual air show in Oshkosh, Wis., which attracted 750,000 in 2000.

Nucifora saw this as a natural, exploiting the city’s aviation heritage.

Other festival suggestions by Nucifora a giant flea market and professional sports exhibition games, for example are interesting but are at least several years away.

“We’ll probably not have four new festivals in Wichita in 2002,” Rolfe said.

Rebuild the bureau’s Web site to provide the detailed and accessible information needed to make decisions on planning a convention or a vacation.

Conduct a local marketing campaign. Rolfe said one way to boost convention and tourism is to let locals know what the area has to offer. He also wants to tap into connections locals have with regional or national associations to bring in more convention traffic.

Rolfe said about 117,000 conventioneers visited Wichita in 2001, spending $38 million. He hopes to boost that 5 percent in 2002.

Reach out to charter bus companies to bring in more tourists. Rolfe said about 100 overnight charter buses visited Wichita in 2001. He hopes to increase that this year.

Better market the south-central Kansas region as a whole, including such as attractions as the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center in Hutchinson and El Dorado Lake.

Do a study to find out how many tourists visit the area, where they come from and where they go. Only then can the bureau set targets on increasing tourists, Rolfe said.