Sturbridge Tourist Group Struggles For Support | Businesses ignore association's efforts
Like the gold, orange, brown and copper-colored leaves are soon to do, tourism in the Sturbridge area has been falling off.
Business owners there say it's been years since they could count on Old Sturbridge Village to draw enough tourists to support the local economy. And the Sturbridge Area Tourist Association (SATA) says its members aren't participating in the creation of new programs designed to increase tourism.
SATA is a committee of the Central Mass. South Chamber of Commerce. Its executive director, Alexandra McNitt, said nearly 40 percent of the chamber's 200 member businesses are tourism related, but only about 10 of them "are trying to promote tourism."
The lack of participation makes it difficult for SATA, which is funded by the local tax on hotel rooms, to start programs that would help draw more tourists to the area.
And those programs are sorely needed.
The Village
According to Michael Harrington Jr., development manager for the the Publick House - a lodging and dining facility in Sturbridge - tourism in the area is "dwindling."
"People are traveling, but they may be coming for the day, rather than staying the night," Harrington said. And according to the Sturbridge Heritage and Preservation Partnership, only half of visitors to Sturbridge say they would return.
Harrington said the local tourist economy once counted on Old Sturbridge Village for its success. "In the past, it may have been a lot more dependent upon that, but as attendance (at OSV) has declined, (area businesses) have reacted."
But the reaction so far has been inadequate. "The hope is with OSV getting organized, we'll see new attractions and more people," Harrington said. OSV reported an $868,796 deficit for the its 2006 fiscal year. The living-history museum installed a new executive director, James Donahue, earlier this year.
Bill Simonic, SATA member and owner of the Yankee Cricket bed and breakfast in Brimfield said, "It's very hard to get people to champion things sometimes."
The lack of response to one SATA effort McNitt would like to see championed makes it seem as if more visitors at OSV may be the region's best chance at a more successful tourist economy.
She's trying to establish a SATA mini grant program, but she's having a hard time getting just three people to run it. It's difficult, she said, to get small business owners to realize that in order to succeed, the Sturbridge area needs more than just Old Sturbridge Village.
And Old Sturbridge Village agrees. Pam Lozier, the village's marketing manager, said the village is remaking itself, and is putting on events every weekend in October and has seen "a gradual increase in visitors." She also said advertising efforts undertaken by SATA, the partnership and the village are a big step in the right direction, especially since collaboration hasn't been an area strength in the past.
But the development of other large destinations in and around Sturbridge is something "OSV would certainly welcome," she said, "especially something in the evening for kids and families."
Outsiders In
For many, the village is a three-hour stop that doesn't prompt a hotel stay, or even a meal, McNitt said.
"I'm hoping we can get three people," on the mini grant committee, McNitt said. "It warrants being a small committee. It's a matter of finding people who can champion these kinds of things, but people are spread real thin right now."
According Harrington, it's the smaller businesses in the Sturbridge area that are spread so thin. "Could there be more participation? Absolutely," Harrington said. But the small business owners are scrambling to attract a shrinking number of tourists, "and they don't really have the manpower to say, 'yes, you can go to a (SATA) meeting today for four hours,'" Harrington said.
The mini grants McNitt is trying to get SATA to offer would fund events - wine tastings at Yankee Spirits for example - that would draw visitors from outside the region.
But for now, those events and others like it are something SATA only aspires to, McNitt said.
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