BEND, OR -- We all know Bend is a growing community. The city's population is expected to increase by 30,000 over the next decade and many people blame tourism. Regional Economist Damon Runberg is one of three local experts participating in the "Tourism 101" event, Wednesday afternoon.

Runberg tells KBND News, "I often hear people talk about how Bend is a tourism town with a tourism economy. My goal on the panel is to just pop a hole in that and say, 'That's not really what we are; that's not what our economy looks like.' If anything, I'd classify Bend as a lifestyle community that has benefited from the tourism economy and has seen just really robust growth and diversification of our economy - due to our economy, not in spite of it." He adds, "Places like San Diego have significantly more tourism jobs as a percent of their economy, than we do here in Bend. And so, it's kind of this misconception that we're this kind of mountain tourism town. Really, we look a lot more like some place like Austin, Texas, with our industry make-up, than someplace like Jackson Hole or Vale."

The discussion will focus on the pros and cons of regional tourism, and how visitors impact the local economy and community. Runberg says tourism is an easy fall guy. "The traffic, it's really hard to pinpoint - is it a tourist or not, is it a commuter? And, our population is also one of the fastest growing in the United States, right now, as a percentage of population, over the last couple of years. We're just a really fast-growing community and there's a lot of growing pains that comes with that. I'm kind of trying to defend the tourism industry a little bit in saying that all those growing pains that we see aren't necessarily tourists in town; a lot of them are new locals, as well."

The Tourism 101 event at the Tower Theatre begins at 1 p.m. with the panel speaking for about a half an hour. Then they'll open it up to questions from the audience. Tickets are $5.