If you think the whole town has gone ga-ga over next week’s arrival of the Polar Express Train Ride, you are right.

But as higgly-piggly as the rushed preparations around the Batesville Public Square and elsewhere may yet appear, there is good reasoning behind the public, quasi-public and private investment going into the infrastructure and cosmetic improvements now being rushed to completion.

It is the growing awareness that tourism can become such a vital component of a community’s economy. Every visitor makes an impact with every single visit and is likely to return if the first impression is favorable.

The Mississippi Development Authority has emphasized increasingly with each passing year the importance of boosting tourism as a community economic asset. The Panola Partnership, Batesville Main Street and the City bought into the idea early and sponsor events ranging from SpringFest to Scare on the Square to the UKC Winter Classic. (Keep in mind that visitors count whether they come from across town or across the country.)

Of course, every other  community in the state is also being encouraged to boost tourism. With so many places planning events to attract visitors, the pool of those available to visit might get thinned during the peak festival weekends in spring and fall.

But the Polar Express Train Ride is different. They picked Batesville as the host city. With that selection they have given this town a unique, distinct attraction that any city would envy. And their schedule avoids those peak festival seasons when every community has events scheduled.

Their announcement in late June has fueled the frenzy ever since. (Granted, the contract for the MDOT-funded project in the Square to rehabilitate sidewalks, parking and landscaping had been let the week before Polar Express announcement.)

The appearance of Batesville’s Square with the railroad bisecting it was a major factor in the decision that brings us Polar Express. Driving the frenzy is the collective realization that, having had the good fortune to have been selected for the Polar Express, the community owes to Grenada Railway and its parent Iowa Holdings — and especially to the visitors it will bring — the best possible experience in Batesville.