The city of Berea is taking steps to bring back some of the area's traditions with its Old Town project wile taking a leap into the future.

On uesday, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was conducted to celebrate the unveiling of the Berea Welcome Center's new Kentuck Artisan Heritage Trail's kiosk housed in the L & N Train Depot.

The recent addition will enable those interested in finding out more about the four-county area of Madison, Rockcastle, Estill and Jackson to do so. The kiosk, which houses the KAHT Web site, operates as a workstation, as well. The Web site itself features more than 100 businesses and events that included everything from bed and breakfasts, craft shops, and artist's studios to historical sites and cultural heritage attractions.

"We certainly expect an increase in tourism here with the Artisan Center reopening," Mayor Clifford Kerby said. "We want to be ready when people come in here, so they can walk up and pring themselves out a map of things they want to see. Often they go to a town and really don't know what's there. Now, they can come over to see all of these wonderful things in the area. We hope to branch them out and have them go out to look at the different artisans. And we think this'll be a big help with that."

The Berea Tourism office looks out across an area that is receiving a facelife. North Broadway is undergoing changed to make the town more accessible to travelers and shoppers.

"Tourism certainly is a big industry, and it's especially big in Berea," Kerby said. "As we get the Artisan Center and as the six-lang highway opens up, even if we can bring in 2% of the people passing by right now, that would be thousands of people."

The Web site was actually designed and launched in May. Now those without Internet service can come into the visitor center and get the same services as they would on the World Wide Web.

According to Cheryl Stone, director of the Center of Economic Development, Entrepreneurship and Technology at Eastern Kentucky University, the site would provide its users the opportunity to design their own tour and print it.

CEDET developed the community and economic development project with a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission for $64,643. The project also received $70,703 in additional matching and in-kind contributions from public and private sectors.

"Actually this program... is really unique in the country," Stone said. "What we use is a program called GIS, which is a mapping program. It does cultural attribute mapping, which is basically what this is. This particular kiosk is unique in that it is the only kiosk that has the features; the trails at this point, but we hope it is just the first of a number of kiosks to come. We plan to expand the trails."

Stone said that CEDET has an application for additional grant funds with the Appalachian Regional Commission. Tentatively, there would be 12 more trails added and additional kiosks in highly visible areas.

The interactive online maps provided on the Web site will be a big help to tourists planning their vacations. It will also be beneficial to the residents of the aforementioned four counties in their quest to find out new things about the area. It will also help create new networking opportunities for them.

"One of the artists that was here for ther ceremony went over and printed out Jackson County because she lives at the Madison/Jackson County boarder," Executive Director of Berea Tourism Belle Jackson said. "That's part of the mission of this project, as well, it to make sure when a visitor comes to you through this trail project you can refer them to comeone else down the line."

The criteria in order to be a part of the project included a couple of items. The artisans or merchants underwent some hospitality training and created their own Web sites.

"What I think this does for Berea is continue to validate that we are the arts and crafts capital of Kentucky," Jackson said. "It's not only providing a security for the traveler, but it's bringing traditional arts and crafts to the new millennium."