March 21, 2005
Drawing a crowd | A York County group tries new strategies to attract tourists to the region
By Nina Heiser
Tourism promotion in southern Maine is a tricky thing. While summer traffic in coastal York County might suggest the region has all the tourists it can handle, restaurant and hotel owners and retail operators continually are in search of the next season's customers. But, those in the industry say, one-size-fits-all marketing simply doesn't work for the region: Canadians tend to prefer the beach vacations in Old Orchard Beach, Wells and Ogunquit, while the Kennebunks attract New England-based fans of the rocky coast and the shopping opportunities of Dock Square and Lower Village.
The challenge for the Southern Maine Coast Tourism Association, made up of representatives from the seven chambers of commerce that serve the coastal towns from Kittery to Old Orchard Beach as well as Sanford, has been to promote the region as a whole, while also pointing out individual towns' specialties. This month, the SMCTA takes another step in that effort with the addition of Will Haynes, the association's first program coordinator. (See "Joining the 21st century," p. 31) Haynes, whose background is in retail operations and financial management, has been charged with developing a simple message to market the relatively diverse region. "Now I will be selling something I really love for a living," Haynes said, "and it will benefit the community where I live."
Aaron Perkins, who runs the Dunes Motel in Ogunquit with his wife, Cindy, and his mother, Cynthia, sees Haynes' appointment as an opportunity for the SMCTA to make its marketing efforts more effective. "The Internet is the quickest and easiest way to plan a vacation, and is becoming increasingly critical for the regional association," he said. "The website has taken a life of its own and the chambers and chamber executives can't keep up with it. If we were going to make an earnest effort [marketing the region], we decided we had to have a professional."
The change at the SMCTA is part of a larger effort by the Maine Office of Tourism to encourage regional tourism marketing. The concept is not new to the industry, nationally or internationally, but it is new to Maine. The Office of Tourism "has been trying to foster that approach for quite a long time," according to its director, Dann Lewis.
Thinking about tourism regionally, rather than on a town-by-town or even property-by-property basis, is already happening elsewhere in the United States, Lewis said. "Our competitors are not the guy down the street, but Massachusetts, the coast of France and the rest of the world," he said. "The state has focused on promotion to get Maine on the radar screen, and the regional associations can take advantage of that awareness."
Taking the long-term view
The SMCTA is one of the state's eight tourism regions, a designation that was solidified in 2001, when the state Legislature approved the creation of the Maine Tourism Marketing Partnership Program, which funds the regions. Previously, regional tourism funds had been included in the biennial state budget, with allocations changing from year to year.
Long-term planning was difficult, according to Perkins, who recently completed a three-year term representing the southern coastal region on the Maine Tourism Commission, an advisory body for the Maine Office of Tourism. When the new program was implemented in 2003, SMCTA and its counterparts across the state were able to take on longer-term projects, such as advertising in annual magazines, where space must be reserved as much as 18 months prior to publication.
The association also does a significant amount of marketing via trade and travel shows, according to Maureen Regan, chair of the Greater York Chamber of Commerce and owner of Seaside Vacation Rentals, which handles several hundred homes on the York County coast. With the dedicated funding for marketing, small-business owners ˆ such as Perkins of the Dunes ˆ are able to attend the same shows each year, building a rapport with both travel industry representatives and the general public.
Because of its proximity, Boston's travel shows are still the number-one market for southern coastal Maine, but Perkins also plans to go to shows in Canada and Pennsylvania this year. "We try to expand [the marketing effort] every year and have been aided through the grant program, which has been an enormous boon to marketing in York County," Regan said, adding that attempts have been made at international marketing. There has been some success, she said, but Sept. 11 didn't help, and neither does the war in Iraq.
The SMCTA also produces a glossy, color promotional magazine, which is distributed as far away as the Washington, D.C./New York corridor and some southern states. "There is always a question about how [effective] that is, especially with online marketing," said Perkins. "But the magazine is nice and interesting, and useful at travel and trade shows."
Making a name
The regional approach to tourism complements the general push toward regionalization promoted by Gov. John Baldacci, according to Dick Leeman, president of the SMCTA and executive director of the Kennebunk & Kennebunkport Chamber of Commerce.
"Regionalization is a struggle at both the local and state level," Leeman said. "But the Baldacci administration has moved mountains in terms of creating a development model, starting early in his term, calling for the state's university system to get on board with tourism research and outreach programs."
Leeman is referring to the creation of the Center for Tourism Research and Outreach, or CenTRO, a joint effort between the state university system, the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Office of Tourism and the tourism industry that was approved by University of Maine trustees in January. CenTRO officially opens for business July 1 at UMaine in Orono, with additional offices at the University of Southern Maine, where Charlie Colgan, an economist and professor of public policy and management, will be its associate director.
The center will be headed by Kevin Boyle, a UMaine business and economics professor. And, according to Lewis, members of the Maine Tourism Advisory Committee ˆ made up of representatives from the tourism industry, state government and the business community ˆ will meet several times a year to help CenTRO attain its objectives. Chief among them is gathering more data on regional tourism. "We have good data on the state level," he said. "We have one of the top travel research firms in the nation doing annual research for us, but we haven't broken that down into towns and communities."
Data from a 2003 study commissioned by the state shows, for example, that southern Maine is the destination for 30% of all trips to the state; two-thirds of those visitors spend the night. One-third of visitors are head of households earning $75,000 or more. They book their trips in half a month or less, relying on friends, relatives, previous experience and the Internet, and most of them come from New England.
Information gathered by Boyle and his associates at CenTRO "will supplement the big picture with more detail on the local level," said Lewis, which is "instrumental for planning purposes."
In the end, as the regional associations continue to organize their efforts and hire people like Haynes ˆ and they are all heading in that direction ˆ there will be more collaboration between the regions, Perkins said. In the meantime, the SMCTA will continue its efforts to make a name for York County with tourists. "As a business person," said Perkins, "it is incredibly important to me for the region to have a very strong identity."
The challenge for the Southern Maine Coast Tourism Association, made up of representatives from the seven chambers of commerce that serve the coastal towns from Kittery to Old Orchard Beach as well as Sanford, has been to promote the region as a whole, while also pointing out individual towns' specialties. This month, the SMCTA takes another step in that effort with the addition of Will Haynes, the association's first program coordinator. (See "Joining the 21st century," p. 31) Haynes, whose background is in retail operations and financial management, has been charged with developing a simple message to market the relatively diverse region. "Now I will be selling something I really love for a living," Haynes said, "and it will benefit the community where I live."
Aaron Perkins, who runs the Dunes Motel in Ogunquit with his wife, Cindy, and his mother, Cynthia, sees Haynes' appointment as an opportunity for the SMCTA to make its marketing efforts more effective. "The Internet is the quickest and easiest way to plan a vacation, and is becoming increasingly critical for the regional association," he said. "The website has taken a life of its own and the chambers and chamber executives can't keep up with it. If we were going to make an earnest effort [marketing the region], we decided we had to have a professional."
The change at the SMCTA is part of a larger effort by the Maine Office of Tourism to encourage regional tourism marketing. The concept is not new to the industry, nationally or internationally, but it is new to Maine. The Office of Tourism "has been trying to foster that approach for quite a long time," according to its director, Dann Lewis.
Thinking about tourism regionally, rather than on a town-by-town or even property-by-property basis, is already happening elsewhere in the United States, Lewis said. "Our competitors are not the guy down the street, but Massachusetts, the coast of France and the rest of the world," he said. "The state has focused on promotion to get Maine on the radar screen, and the regional associations can take advantage of that awareness."
Taking the long-term view
The SMCTA is one of the state's eight tourism regions, a designation that was solidified in 2001, when the state Legislature approved the creation of the Maine Tourism Marketing Partnership Program, which funds the regions. Previously, regional tourism funds had been included in the biennial state budget, with allocations changing from year to year.
Long-term planning was difficult, according to Perkins, who recently completed a three-year term representing the southern coastal region on the Maine Tourism Commission, an advisory body for the Maine Office of Tourism. When the new program was implemented in 2003, SMCTA and its counterparts across the state were able to take on longer-term projects, such as advertising in annual magazines, where space must be reserved as much as 18 months prior to publication.
The association also does a significant amount of marketing via trade and travel shows, according to Maureen Regan, chair of the Greater York Chamber of Commerce and owner of Seaside Vacation Rentals, which handles several hundred homes on the York County coast. With the dedicated funding for marketing, small-business owners ˆ such as Perkins of the Dunes ˆ are able to attend the same shows each year, building a rapport with both travel industry representatives and the general public.
Because of its proximity, Boston's travel shows are still the number-one market for southern coastal Maine, but Perkins also plans to go to shows in Canada and Pennsylvania this year. "We try to expand [the marketing effort] every year and have been aided through the grant program, which has been an enormous boon to marketing in York County," Regan said, adding that attempts have been made at international marketing. There has been some success, she said, but Sept. 11 didn't help, and neither does the war in Iraq.
The SMCTA also produces a glossy, color promotional magazine, which is distributed as far away as the Washington, D.C./New York corridor and some southern states. "There is always a question about how [effective] that is, especially with online marketing," said Perkins. "But the magazine is nice and interesting, and useful at travel and trade shows."
Making a name
The regional approach to tourism complements the general push toward regionalization promoted by Gov. John Baldacci, according to Dick Leeman, president of the SMCTA and executive director of the Kennebunk & Kennebunkport Chamber of Commerce.
"Regionalization is a struggle at both the local and state level," Leeman said. "But the Baldacci administration has moved mountains in terms of creating a development model, starting early in his term, calling for the state's university system to get on board with tourism research and outreach programs."
Leeman is referring to the creation of the Center for Tourism Research and Outreach, or CenTRO, a joint effort between the state university system, the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Office of Tourism and the tourism industry that was approved by University of Maine trustees in January. CenTRO officially opens for business July 1 at UMaine in Orono, with additional offices at the University of Southern Maine, where Charlie Colgan, an economist and professor of public policy and management, will be its associate director.
The center will be headed by Kevin Boyle, a UMaine business and economics professor. And, according to Lewis, members of the Maine Tourism Advisory Committee ˆ made up of representatives from the tourism industry, state government and the business community ˆ will meet several times a year to help CenTRO attain its objectives. Chief among them is gathering more data on regional tourism. "We have good data on the state level," he said. "We have one of the top travel research firms in the nation doing annual research for us, but we haven't broken that down into towns and communities."
Data from a 2003 study commissioned by the state shows, for example, that southern Maine is the destination for 30% of all trips to the state; two-thirds of those visitors spend the night. One-third of visitors are head of households earning $75,000 or more. They book their trips in half a month or less, relying on friends, relatives, previous experience and the Internet, and most of them come from New England.
Information gathered by Boyle and his associates at CenTRO "will supplement the big picture with more detail on the local level," said Lewis, which is "instrumental for planning purposes."
In the end, as the regional associations continue to organize their efforts and hire people like Haynes ˆ and they are all heading in that direction ˆ there will be more collaboration between the regions, Perkins said. In the meantime, the SMCTA will continue its efforts to make a name for York County with tourists. "As a business person," said Perkins, "it is incredibly important to me for the region to have a very strong identity."
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