South County Shop Owners Want to Draw Local Residents
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — The Berkshire Visitor's Bureau held its monthly “Tourism Talkback” meeting at the Vault gallery on Thursday.
Nearly a dozen area shop, gallery and restaurant owners gathered to address concerns and share ideas on how to bolster tourism and spending in South County, especially during the slower months of winter. According to bureau President Lauri Klefos, the winter campaign this year is going to focus on "daycationers" from Albany, N.Y., and Hartford, Conn., as well as offering spending incentives to local residents.
"The goal is to expand our summer campaign to a year-round campaign," Klefos said. "We need to find out what we can do to cater to closer-in markets. Typically the visitor's bureau has not done marketing to residents."
Alan Kalish, director of the Vault Gallery on Main Street, said part of the problem with attracting visitors in the winter months is that the stores are often closed several days a week in order to cut costs.
"The No. 1 complaint of the day from clients I see is the lack of stores open," Kalish said. "Lots of businesses in town close three days a week in the winter. If they do close they're going to hurt themselves more than they think. They're scaring off the few clients that we get in fall and winter."
But staying open during the slow season isn't easy, said Robin Helfand, owner of Robin's Candy Shop on Main Street and You Are Here on Railroad Street. She said she is considering closing a few days a week to stave off winter costs. Helfand also suggested that the secret to marketing the Berkshires is in the uniqueness of its businesses.
 Lauri Klefos, president of the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, explains the bureau's winter campaign. |
"These are small, funky, mom and pop shops and specialty stores," she said. "Let's get out the ad telling the North East about the secrets of the Berkshires, an insider's scoop, an insider's deal."
Phil Coleman, co-proprietor of Heirlooms in Stockbridge, the secret, aside from getting the word out, is collaboration and pricing.
"We've really had to look at pricing," he said. "We cannot expect people to pay New York prices in the economy that we're in. We're reaching out to the people in Stockbridge, we don't really need to reach out to any more second-home owners or tourists. They'll find us on their own."
Catering to a more local market was a top priority of the gathering. Michael Marcus, owner of Bizen on Railroad Street, suggested that businesses and towns in South County look to Pittsfield as an example of drawing in a spending crowd.
"Maybe we could do something like the Third Thursdays they have in Pittsfield," he said. "But the big challenge in Great Barrington is that all those other towns that have been dormant for years are waking up. We need to answer these other towns."
While the answer may not be as simple as staying open for an extra day, Klefos said the Visitors Bureau now has much more freedom in terms of what kinds of marketing is down to get the word out.
"A lot of things have changed for us," she said. "We've been fueled through state money for the last 20 years. That really tied our hands up. Last year the state took away 90 percent of that money. We had 705 members who came to the table last year and we did a lot of cooperative marketing and had a successful fall campaign."
