BILLINGTON

PAWTUCKET — When people think of Rhode Island as a destination, the cities of Providence and Newport definitely come to mind, but how many people think about visiting the Blackstone Valley?

The area north of Providence includes Cumberland, Central Falls, Smithfield, Woonsocket and Pawtucket — considered the birthplace of the industrial revolution, where Old Slater Mill, the first water-powered cotton-spinning mill in America, was built in 1793.

The area has a rich history, with its story of industry, change, culture and tradition. Slater Mill helped to build an economy, bringing with it development, jobs and revenue, but it also polluted the Blackstone River. The river has been cleaned up somewhat and its history is worth preserving as a way to increase tourism, said Robert Billington, who heads the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council.

Since 2005, the nonprofit organization has run the Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Laboratory, which holds workshops on ways to do environmentally sustainable tourism — creating events and experiences that also help to protect and preserve the landscape. The lab focuses on place-based tourism and going beyond putting out advertisements just to get people to come, Billington said.

“When people are thinking about sustainability, the conversation is always about saving or preserving open space, or the rain forest. It doesn’t usually … discuss an urban environment,” Billington said Tuesday. “Some communities change the place to bring visitors. If you just bring in more businesses and build more, the soul of the place can be lost.”

To that end, the tourism council has sponsored workshops on how to create more “green” practices. The council has invited major hotel chains to discuss ideas and has brought in national recycling organizations, he said.

The laboratory’s next workshop, called “Harnessing the Power of Social Media,” will be Wednesday at the council’s main offices, the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center, 175 Main Street. It will focus on social-networking technologies as a way to promote tourism and market visitor destinations. The keynote speaker will be Sandeep Jannakar, an associate professor at the City University of New York graduate school of journalism and a co-creator of Web-site platforms for newspapers.

The event is open to the public as well as Southern New England tourism professionals, policymakers, educators, planners and economic-development shapers.

“It’s a hands-on opportunity to understand all the social media that is on the rise. Many of us know Facebook and Twitter. We know it from afar, but we may not be employing it,” Billington said. Some of the questions that will be raised, he said, will be, “Why do I need it for my organization or why don’t I need it? We are fascinated with the idea of electronic media. It is an efficient way to get our work done. We are inviting [people] to learn how we can use technology to our best advantage and help get our message out and use less paper.”

He cited some examples of sustainable tourism, such as cleaning up the Blackstone River, giving river tours, launching a floating bed and breakfast, adding historic place markers along the bike path that hugs the river’s banks and letting people know it’s not OK to dump in the river. The Blackstone Valley is now a place to visit, swim and fish, he said. Promoting it is something the tourism council has been doing since it opened in 1985.

“This tourism is about a specific place to make use of sustainable principals and that benefits the place and residents first,” Billington said.

Registration is required for the workshop. For additional information and to register, call (401) 724-2200 or go to www.sustainabletourismlab.com.

lsparks@projo.com