🔒Destinations, near and far

Did you notice this issue of Mainebiz has a decidedly Spanish accent?

That's because we have an item about executives from Dalegip, a chemical company in Mexico, joining with executives at GAC Chemical in Searsport in a multi-million-dollar partnership to provide specialty pigments to Maine's paper makers. The effort, which should be churning out customized pigments for the paper industry by year's end, is expected to reduce papermaking costs and reduce the carbon footprint of the papermaking supply chain. Good news.

And we have a little one-on-one time with Ignacio Galan, chairman of Iberdrola, Central Maine Power Co.'s parent, in which he talks about the Spanish company's long-term investment in Maine. In the interview with Senior Writer Jim McCarthy, Galan tells us that Iberdrola is prepared to invest another $3 billion in Maine through 2020. That's on top of the $1.4 billion Maine Power Reliability Program that started in 2010. We're glad that a huge international company sees such promise in Maine, lured perhaps by the stability of our markets when compared with what's happening in his own country. We call that more good news.

We're not sure how much time Galan was able to spend here, but we hope he had a chance to take in some sights or cultural gems. Because they comprise the backbone of Maine's $10 billion tourism industry, which is part of this issue's focus on travel and tourism. (To see the number of jobs in Maine's leisure and hospitality industry for the past 10 years, go to mainebiz.biz/me-economy.)

To further spread the news about Maine destinations, a network of motor coach operators sprung up four years ago and now offers familiarization trips to unusual or out-of-the-mainstream destinations to other tour operators. More than 50 tour operators have taken in sights and subsequently arranged tours for their diverse clientele. According to Contributing Writer Matt Dodge, the most recent trip included operators who book tours for Amish people and “wacky women.”

We also offer an update on the proposal to establish a national park in northern Maine. A scaled-down version of the controversial park is now being lobbied by Lucas St. Clair, son of billionaire philanthropist Roxanne Quimby and a Dover-Foxcroft native. St. Clair is reaching out to residents and other stakeholders to garner support for the park, and has managed to bring notables like George Smith, former executive director of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, into the fold. See why St. Clair cares so much in “Seeking favor."

The author of that piece, and our cover story, is someone new to the Mainebiz staff, but not new to our readers. Lori Valigra has been freelancing for us since last year and recently joined us a staff writer. She has written extensively about business, and honed her skills with publications and news services as varied as the Christian Science Monitor, UPI and Reuters. We're thrilled to have her with us.

She got the customary baptism by fire by turning around a cover story her first week here. We'd been curious about the market landscape for Maine supermarkets ever since we saw Mark Malone's retail predictions at the 2013 Maine Real Estate & Development Association forecasting conference. He predicted the arrival of Market Basket to Maine would put additional pressure on Maine's traditional grocery chains, which were already reeling from changes in consumer buying habits.

Our research says he's right. Check out “Market shares."