Bienvenue | Saint John and Bangor expect a new partnership will spark tourists on both sides of the border
Photo/Brandon McKenney
Kerrie Tripp oversees Bangor's visitors bureau
Photo/Brandon McKenney
Lloyd Hall, manager of the Old Town Canoe Visitors Center, expects the new joint marketing effort between Bangor and Saint John, N.B., is likely to send more tourists his way. Part-time, seasonal workers at the center expect to work full time this summer, he says.
Businesses and tourism officials in Bangor and Saint John, N.B., are optimistic more visitors will be attracted to their cities by a targeted, two-nation vacation plan available next month through a new regional partnership.
The brainchild of Kerrie Tripp, executive director of the Greater Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau, the plan lays out six suggested trips grouped by interest or activity to take tourists from a visit in the New Brunswick city to a visit in Greater Bangor, or vice versa. Although the state of Maine and the province of New Brunswick already collaborate on tourism marketing, this effort targets just the Saint John and Bangor regions. Tripp says by working closely with Tourism Saint John and Hospitality Saint John, both regions can create more two-way tourism traffic and create an uptick in tourist-related revenues.
The idea originally evolved during Tripp’s first stint with the visitors bureau from 2000 to 2005. At the time, Access Atlantica, an industry trade group with offices in Saint John and Bangor that promotes business development, held meetings to see how businesses located within the zone could work together. The zone, dubbed Atlantica, encompasses 400,000 people who live in communities stretching from Bangor to Saint John.
When she returned to the bureau as executive director in 2008, Tripp made the joint tourism marketing effort one of her top goals.
By mid-June, Tripp says people on both sides of the border will be able to choose from three distinct trip packages compiled by Bangor tourism officials and three compiled from their counterparts in St. John. Although the themes were still under review by press time, one is certain to include a kayaking trip from the Bay of Fundy along the New Brunswick coast to the Penobscot River. Other potential themes are museum tours and natural wonders, such as the Fundy Trail Parkway and Saint John’s legendary Reverse Falls Rapids to cruising through Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island.
Earlier this month, representatives from the Bangor visitors bureau, the Maine Highlands, Hollywood Slots & Raceway, Bangor International Airport, the Four Points by Sheraton, Holiday Inn and Lafayette Hotels traveled to Saint John and held a mini-reception for New Brunswick travel agents to make them aware of different attractions in the Greater Bangor region. The distance between the two cities is 168 miles, or four hours by car.
“It’s a matter of giving the information in a very concise way,” Tripp says of the outreach. “You have to collaborate these days.”
Wanda Hughes, president of Hospitality Saint John and owner of GoFundyEvents.com, says Saint John tourism officials intend to call the three itineraries “Heads and Tails,” with a moose head to evoke Maine’s outdoor adventures and a tail to symbolize the whales in the Bay of Fundy.
“We’re trying to educate folks on how close we really are,” says Hughes, who leads many tour groups to Bangor for weekend shopping trips. “There’s a little something for everybody en route.”
Hughes says the itineraries will work well for people with at least three- to five-day vacations. As they review potential itineraries, Hughes says Saint John tourism officials are focusing on what will appeal to families and couples to “make sure you’re selling to them what they really want.”
Preparing for more paddlers
In tandem with Tripp’s two-nation vacation plan, Old Town municipal officials, Old Town Canoe, the Penobscot Nation, the University of Maine at Orono, Cyr Bus Lines, the Old Town Trading Post and the Black Bear Inn have combined forces to offer seven kayaking stay-and-play packages to complement those already offered by GoFundyEvents.com and Hospitality Saint John, says Dan Cashman, city spokesman.
“This is the first time a partnership like this has been put together on the Penobscot,” says Tripp.
Old Town Canoe will provide canoes and kayaks, a registered Maine Guide and ground transportation for half-day and full-day excursions on the Penobscot River, the Stillwater River and other nearby waterways. Lloyd Hall, manager of the Old Town Canoe Visitors Center, says the stay-and-play packages will give the business a chance to showcase paddling on the Penobscot River, which he describes as “the genesis of our company.” Plenty of people from New Brunswick already come to the visitors center, says Hall, but the combined marketing should bring even more. He expects the center’s seven seasonal part-time employees will end up working full time to keep up with demand.
“We really want to test the waters and learn from the experience,” he says of the partnership.
Benefits on both sides of the border
Tripp says both regions could benefit from the loss of the CAT high-speed ferry service that transported U.S. and Canadian visitors from Portland and Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, N.S., until last year. Many visitors who used the high-speed ferry service to transport their cars and motor coaches to and from Nova Scotia will now have to drive through Maine and New Brunswick, or access the ferry service that runs from Saint John to Digby, N.S. In 2009, more than half of the 76,000 CAT passengers took the ferry out of Portland; the others boarded in Bar Harbor, according to a company vice president.
“We have a really unique opportunity to capture these people,” Tripp says.
According to research by Statistics Canada International Travel Survey, fewer Mainers have traveled to New Brunswick over the last five years. In 2005, the survey shows 70,000 Mainers visited the province and spent $14.6 million; that compares with 2008, when 54,000 Mainers visited New Brunswick and spent $10.4 million. The trend also holds true for U.S. residents. In 2005, 372,200 Americans visited New Brunswick and spent $114.4 million compared to the 343,200 Americans who visited the province in 2008 and spent $99.85 million.
Although Saint John has seen a spike in cruise ship passengers from 2000 to 2007, the number of visitors traveling to the city by automobile dropped during the same time period. Between 2000 and 2007, automobile visits to Saint John dropped 21%. The drop in bus tours was even greater: motorcoach tours delivered more than 71,000 room visits in 2001 and fell to less than 2,800 in 2007, according to Statistics Canada.
Likewise, the U.S. Department of Transportation data shows fewer border crossings. Almost 52,000 bus crossings were recorded in 2006 between Maine and Canada, which dropped to 34,670 in 2009. Personal vehicle crossings dropped from 3.5 million in 2006 to 2.7 million in 2009.
Other Maine-based data is hard to come by. Maine Office of Tourism Director Pat Eltman told Mainebiz the agency does not have any recent statistics showing how many Canadians visited Maine and how much money they spent. (Statistics Canada, however, shows both visits and spending by Mainers in Canada increased steadily from 2005 until 2008 when visits dropped slightly, but spending continued to increase. See chart on page 16). The University of Maine hasn’t done a travel survey focused on Canadian visitors since 2006.
That year, Harold Daniel, director of the Center for Tourism Research Office with the University of Maine in Orono, says the survey showed 21.2 million Canadians visited Maine and spent $323.8 million for lodging, restaurants, attractions, gas and shopping. Daniel says 56% of that revenue came from overnight visitors and 44% came from day visitors. At the time, the Canadian dollar was worth less than the U.S. dollar, he notes.
The buying power of the U.S. dollar is key in cross border tourism. Charles Colgan, an economist at the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, says it is hard to tell if more Mainers will flock to New Brunswick or other Canadian provinces this year because of the near parity of the Canadian and U.S. dollars.
According to the Bank of Canada, over the decade spanning December 2000 through December 2009, the U.S. dollar has on average been worth $1.27 in Canadian dollars, while the Canadian dollar has been worth 78 U.S. cents. As of press time, the Canadian dollar was worth 94 cents compared to the U.S. dollar.
“In past times when the Canadian dollar has approached parity with the U.S. there has been a definite upswing in Canadian tourism into Maine,” Colgan wrote in an e-mail. “But the dollar parity will pull more Canadians to Maine than advertising will pull Mainers to New Brunswick.”
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Bob Cook, Mainebiz staff reporter, can be reached at bcook@mainebiz.biz.
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