It All Starts with a Visit
There likely isn’t a day that passes in this world that someone doesn’t quote the inimitable Maura Gast:
“If you build a place where people want to visit, you’ll build a place where people want to live.
If you build a place where people want to live, you’ll build a place where people need to work.
If you build a place where people want to work, you’ll build a place where business wants to be.
And, if you build a place where business wants to be, we’ll be back to building a place where people want to visit.
It all starts with the visit.”
Powerful words. Eloquent phrases that have helped thousands of Destination Marketers explain the vital importance of our sector to those who have never bothered to connect the dots…but now can. An irresistible thesis that has engaged economic development interests in scores of communities to embrace the opportunity that the Visitor Economy offers their ongoing mission.
And, as much as it has been mantra for so many for so long, we have recently detected the slightest of cracks in its veneer. And, while this “Circle of Life” will still resonate for the vast majority of us, as they say, your results may differ.
Over the past couple months of facilitating community discussions and DMO Strategic Plans across the country, a few of the conversations touched upon a concern that the DMO needed to keep a watchful eye on a growing sentiment that increasing levels of visitation were beginning to stress the Quality of Life for local residents. Indeed, we heard stories of a few local critics that had publicly accused the DMO of being directly responsible for the growing problem. And, as you’d expect, the DMO was not the guilty party, instead working diligently to spread visitors across the region and across shoulder seasons to mitigate the congestion residents were feeling.
Indeed, as Park City Chamber CEO Jennifer Wesselhoff shared on our DMOU Podcast regarding the virulent resident pushback during her time in Sedona, her DMO hadn’t marketed the Summer season in years. Instead, it was the National Park Service’s promotion of the 100th Anniversary of our National Parks that was a significant contributor to the untenable situation residents endured during the Summer of 2016.
As I contemplated the comments I had heard from frustrated DMO pros, it dawned on me that the first two lines of Maura’s creed could actually be dangerous in the wrong hands. For those that despise the influx of new residents into their community, our saying that by creating a place where people want to visit creates a place where people want to live can be an inadvertent smoking gun. Regardless of why people are moving in and jacking property values, the target can be, for those with an agenda, placed upon our organizations’ collective back.
For the vast majority of destinations with whom we share Maura’s “Circle of Life,” we still see audiences light up with a new sophistication of how community development works. But, connecting visitation with new resident acquisition in communities where housing prices have gotten completely out of hand or congestion is becoming a problem may no longer be the message we want to send. In these rare cases, it may be a wholly different precept.
While the carnage of COVID may not have ultimately produced the respect for Destination Marketing and Tourism that we may have expected or desired, it did produce a marked increase in resident appreciation of independent small businesses. Maybe a new message is that the Visitor Economy is vital to bring these small independents back from the brink (a recent study indicates that 4 out of 5 restaurants are unsure if they’ll survive 2022); that resident support and spending can’t do it alone. Our favorite restaurants, nightspots and retails are depending on visitors to make them whole. People have jobs because we do ours.
Maybe it’s a return to a discussion about the need for visitor-generated, non-resident taxes that keep our local taxes down. And, maybe for your community, it’s something completely different. Is the local college struggling with new student acquisition (and the loss of said institution would put a dent in the region’s Quality of Life)? I recently spoke with a representative of a University Athletic Department who shared that his acquisition rate for targeted High School athletes was 35%…but it was 90% if they could get them on campus for a visit.
What about your biggest employers? If your community isn’t in the Top 20 most desired places to live and work (and the vast majority aren’t), doesn’t encouraging a visit help local corporations lure top talent? And doesn’t that mean more business throughout town?
I can’t say what the next Maura-ism will be for your community…but I do know that the mantra we have followed for lo these 12 years will no longer work for some of us. Every community has a different reality and different needs. And, it’s time to prepare a Plan B for when residents begin to get malevolent.
And, Maura and I would love to hear your thoughts…