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HAMILTON “You live in arguably one of the most beautiful places in the United States,” Berkeley Young, president of Young Strategies said. “It’s the small town charm, it’s the beauty of the area, it’s the friendliness of the people, it’s who you are.”
Madison County Tourism hosted the 2015 Travel Industry Forecast and Visitor Research Project presentation on Wednesday at the Colgate Inn in Hamilton. Business leaders, college representatives and town officials from Madison County who attended the presentation were told the study will provide valuable insights on tourism trends that can be expected this year. Young Strategies will be spearheading the study that will focus on ways to promote and advertise the area; to bring in more tourism without causing overcrowding. Young said that the travel industry had tremendous growth last year and it predicted that the growth will continue through 2015 and 2016. The study includes five counties, Madison, Onondaga, Cayuga, Cortland, and Oswego as a part of the Regional Economic Development Council. He added that a major part of bringing visitors to the area is finding out what makes you unique because travelers are looking for unique and new experiences. The goal of the study is to create a strategic development plan on how travelers move when they visit our area – do they stay in one county or travel through a few – when they come, where they spend their money, and how they plan their trips. “This will allow us to identify the right customer that can make a substantional economic impact and leave as little of a footprint as possible, but take with them great memories,” Young said.
Young Strategies Inc., is a Charlotte, NC based firm that specializes in research and strategic planning for the travel industry with a focus on destinations.
Young spoke many times about travelers wanting a unique experience; using the example of not being able to grow hops in the south, so being able to say that your beer is made with local grains and hops makes you valuable to travelers who are coming north and want that experience. “There are fancy stores like Wegmans all over America that have fabulous wine departments and thousands of beers, it’s not liquid in a bottle they are coming for,” Young said. “They are coming for the experience, they want to go home with a piece of you and a story to tell their friends and you have to give it to them.”
Young also spoke about the number of people that are within a five hour drive of Madison County that could come for a weekend trip. There are 51 million people within a five hour drive in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
“This study will be extremely beneficial for all of us,” Scott Flaherty executive director of Madison County Tourism said.
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