|
continuation of page
1:
The next step is to put the information, including links
to WebSearch demonstrations, as well as all the references to
economic development in the
first section of this resource paper to use for
the
benefit
of communities.
I offer
various considerations
below to guide communities that want to develop infrastructure
to attract tourists, as well as to guide entrepreneurs who
need resources and cooperation from communities.
The community is a location, as defined within the five categories
listed above. It may be an enclave within a larger community
or it may stand alone in a rural setting, but its first qualifying
feature, as tourism product, is that it is an attraction for
a visitor. Infrastructure is what accommodates the visitor
in a manner that causes him to linger or return.
Infrastructure is made up of places and things that are the
components of accommodation. It may be something that the visitor
doesn't notice or see, unless it is missing --the same things
that attract industrial prospects, such as reliable utilities
or good roads. Infrastructure is what a visitor senses as he
makes his decision to linger or return. Security and hospitality
are two critical infrastructure components that someone passing
through a community must sense before he will consider conversion
to tourist.
The visitor makes the rules. In other words, if the attraction
is tempting but doesn't match what the visitor is willing to
buy, the cash register will not ring. It seems too obvious
to write such a statement, but my point is to underscore the
fact that the visitor is the decision-maker.
Business leaders who redirect troubled production processes
and deploy quality functions have, for a number of years, used
the term "voice of the customer" to alert employees
to what is most important for the future of their jobs with
their companies. The same alert is applicable to communities
that want to build their product development infrastructure
and attract more tourists. Hearing what the visitors have to
say about what they want and what they are willing to pay for,
as well as understanding their meaning of words like hospitable
or convenient or inviting or accommodating, is essential for
converting the tourism development aspirations of a community
into economic development realities.
From the standpoint of the economic development practitioner
there are two voices that must be heard, and understood. The
first is the voice of the visitor. The second is the voice
of the prospect -- the entrepreneur, investor or developer.
(Much of what I have learned about "voice of the customer" comes
from the works of Dr. John Hauser, a marketing professor of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of
Management.)
There is yet another voice that can be important -- the voice
that comes through an association. Associations, such as the
International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions
(IAAPA) can be valuable from the standpoint of developing resource
allies. My advice is that communities look to their allied
area or regional economic development organizations to take
care of maintaining resource contacts through organizations
such as IAAPA. Many industry associations in North America
have an interest in economic development and welcome associated
memberships from state and provincial development organizations.
The fact that the National Association of Industrial and Office
Properties (NAIOP) featured a list of economic development
contacts throughout North America in the Summer 1998 issue
of Development is an example of the importance associations
place on their participation in the economic development process.
NAIOP says that Development is "The Official Magazine
of the Commercial Real Estate Industry." Its
statement, along with the placement of the "Guide to Economic
Development Programs" in its most recent issue of the
magazine underscores the recognized need for economic developers
and real estate professionals to work together for the good
of the community.
Several years ago, I heard the term "walk-around area" in
a meeting of the Urban Land Institute (ULI). Travelers who
stop and linger in communities because they offer an inviting
environment, such as a themed business district or revitalized
main-street, are looking for things to discover. Visitors who
return are attracted to the ambiance of an area or place. Providing
an infrastructure, walking areas and convenient parking, to
move visitors around as pedestrians is a recognized technique
for converting visitors to tourists. Of equal importance is
the provision for easy access to cultural, heritage and recreational
attractions. Convenient access is essential; also, the streets
and paths that lead to and from all attractions must be safe,
clean and inviting. ULI has served me in various situations
where I have been asked to guide communities to resources that
help them develop their tourism-related infrastructure.
In my experience the business people who are most likely to
become prospects for new tourism product start-ups are either
already a part of the community they are interested in, or
they are nearby! Owners and developers of tourism product in
an area are likely to be members of a local chapter of an association
that serves their specific industry segment, such as a restaurant
association. Also, there are many local and regional associations
for businesses and organizations that want to work together
to advance the hospitality and travel industries in a general
way.
The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is an
example of an industry specific association that offers valuable
resources to the tourism product development process in communities.
ICSC is constantly on the move with active local chapters that
serve all of the major tourism markets of North America. All
tourism product that I know about has a retail component either
directly or indirectly tied to it. ICSC focuses on retail.
The association offers various networking situations through
local and regional chapter meetings that can be valuable to
community efforts to recruit new commercial business start-ups.
The term "loss leaders" is often applied in retail
marketing to describe products that businesses don't actually
make a profit from, but are displayed to entice consumers to
shop and buy other products. The community that attracts tourists
has loss leaders also. A loss leader may be a museum or a cultural
center. A loss leader may be a business placed behind a historic
storefront and given incentives to operate there for the good
of the overall area's ambiance. A lost leader may be public
accommodations and conveyances that make lingering in the community
convenient and enjoyable.
It is not uncommon to find new markets opened by pioneering
entrepreneurs who fail in their businesses, only to be followed
by a second-wave entrepreneur who casts out the mistakes of
the first and adjusts to the level the market will bear. Given
the fact that tourism-related businesses are local-market-sensitive
and must be highly competitive, economic development organizations
should not expect much information from successful entrepreneurs
that will aid in recruiting new businesses; however, it is
reasonable to expect that they will cooperate with community
development efforts.
Even if an economic development organization decides to be
aggressive in recruiting "brand name" businesses
from the outside, the chances are that it will take a local
entrepreneur's involvement to complete the deal. Many brand
name businesses that appeal to tourists are franchise operations.
Today's tourists, although they may be looking for adventure,
also look for the security of things familiar, such as the
McDonald's "golden arches" or the "Great Sign" of
Holiday Inn. Franchisors recruit prospects, and the good ones
are capable of evaluating local markets with more objectivity
than economic developers who have responsibilities to sell
their communities.
Although pioneering entrepreneurs are "high-risk" prospects,
communities should organize their economic development efforts
in a way to serve them. In many cases they are the best hopes
for communities to break through to new market potential. Economic
development organizations should guide their entrepreneurial
prospects to resources, such as the small business development
services that are available throughout North America as extensions
of colleges, universities and technical institutions.Small
business development programs and agencies can provide the
valuable service of helping entrepreneurs increase their chances
of success.
In many cases small business development programs are where
entrepreneurs learn about the odds they face in carrying out
their business plans, and the true value of such a program
often ends up in its discouragement of someone who cannot successfully
implement an idea.The
reason so many of small business development programs are housed
on the campuses of educational institutions is because of the
fact that aspiring entrepreneurs are likely to need access
to a variety of academic resources, including returning to
the classroom to shore up their management skills.
One of the most useful services an economic developer can
provide to an entrepreneur is a simple checklist of things
that must be done to go into business. Such a checklist might
be titled "How To Start-Up A Business in (community name)." It
should contain guidance about taxes, regulations and licensing
agencies, and it should provide names and addresses of all
cooperating organizations that have resources and detailed
information to offer. The entrepreneur should expect that he
has to do the legwork and learn to use the process.
Because new markets are forming all the time, the first to
discover one at the community level will most likely be a local
entrepreneur. A red flag of warning: The assumption that an
economic development effort should aggressively recruit for
tourism product development prospects outside the community
is wrong! Recruiting for new tourism product is more akin to
a program for serving existing industries within a community,
than it is a program for recruiting industrial prospects. There
must be a distinction, however, between recruiting for entrepreneurial
prospects and recruiting for resource prospects. Resource prospects,
including franchisors, investors and developers, may have to
be recruited from the outside.
In the absence of a local entrepreneur, a community that believes
in its market potential may want to consider offering to form
a public/private partnership. In the early 1990s Norfolk, Virginia,
was able to move forward on its 10-year-old effort to build
a conference center and hotel downtown by forming a such a
partnership with an outside developer/operator who had to work
for another year to find the investor needed to complete the
deal. In this case, the community was the entrepreneur -- the
risk-taker -- that found a developer who, in turn, found an
investor. The project was named the Norfolk Waterside Marriott
Hotel and Waterside Convention Center. Its developer later
indicated that local individuals in business -- entrepreneurs
-- were not willing to take the risk because it appeared to
them that the market to support such a project was not there.
The above example shows that patience and tenacity was needed
to stay focused on a tourism product project concept over an
extended period of time. In the final analysis the community
not only took the risk but also helped to start a hotel developer,
Stormont Trice, on a course of working with public/private
partnerships throughout the United States in both urban and
rural areas.
My advice to entrepreneurs and business leaders with decisions
to make about commercial projects is to seek out local economic
development practitioners who are willing to work with them.
As we move further away from the limited focus of communities
on industrial development, services are becoming easier to
find; however, business decision-makers may have to take the
lead in some communities and help them strengthen their programs
that serve the needs of entrepreneurs, investors and commercial
developers.
During the course of the transition from industrial development
to economic development in North America, the real estate industry
has handled the bulk of commercial location and start-up projects.
Savvy local real estate professionals have served as conduits
between prospects and community leaders interested in developing
tourism product infrastructure. Real estate developers and
consultants have added to the process. In communities where
the relationship between real estate and economic development
professionals is working, there is no need to change. For business
decision-makers considering the start-up of a new venture in
a community, my best advice is to find out who has a record
for getting things done.
Economic developers are accustomed to dealing with project
criteria for location projects. Examples of various Project
Specification Forms that are available in Site Location Assistance.com
(http://www.SiteLocationAssistance.com). The forms are provided
there so you can study them and use them as guides. The website
addresses confidentiality aside from furnishing the forms as
examples for free, but the main point you need to keep in mind
if you are involved in planning a new business venture is that
professionals know how to deal discreetly with information
about your plans. If you want information kept confidential,
however, say so.
CLICK
HERE for page 1, the beginning of the paper
Summary Guide
This paper was written to serve both the community seeking to develop
new business operations of interest to travelers and people seeking
leisure-time
activities, as well as business people who have decisions to make
about starting-up new ventures people
who need information and resources to help them with decision-making.
It examines definitions and gives
examples that are intended to stir creativity and guide towards decision
within the economic development process. I am providing eight guiding
statements in closing for ...
communities that want to develop infrastructure to attract tourists
The eight points below is a quick reference for community leaders and
economic
development practitioners to use to in building programs and
setting strategies in place. Links to definitions in the .network glossary for
enterprise
and economic development are provided. If the interest is in
seeking the full spectrum of economic
development opportunities, then the
first step towards doing things right has already been taken. The best
advice that the writer of this resource
paper can give is to analyze your
community's potential from within as opposed to looking at what has done
elsewhere and simply copying a program or strategy. You need to take a
best
practices approach. For that, it is suggested that you review
the the .network summary file: Best
Practices for Places that want Economic Development. Keep what
you find in that resource as you review the following::
 The whole community must be developed as a tourist attraction.
Understanding the market and its potential is critical to tourism development.
The
most likely prospects for
enterprise development are at the local
level.
Entrepreneurs become
true prospects when investors and developers are
added.
First-time entrepreneurs and those opening new markets are high-risk prospects.
Networking with business suppliers and allies outside the community is smart.
Not-for-profit enterprises
or attractions can be prospects just like any other.
Public/private
partnerships put communities into prospect
development.
Eight guiding statements for ....
enterprise developers who need community resources
and cooperation
The key words and phrases written into this paper are meant to serve the
entrepreneur or business leader who has decisions to make about a community
or market he has under consideration. I believe that we are in
a time of change when economic development organizations are seriously gearing
up to provide complete services to all prospects that offer opportunities
to their communities. Prospects need to accept a role in shaping
the community economic development organization. I offer the following
key words and phrases that I hope will be helpful
The real estate industry owns the lead position in commercial development.
Savvy economic developers work with local real estate professionals.
When seeking community information, ask for an economic development profile.
When seeking community data, ask for a checklist for starting-up a new
business.
Tell community leaders what economic impact you expect your project to
make.
Tell economic developers what you want them to guard as confidential
information
Work through trade association(s) to find economic development contacts.
Network with economic developers who participate in your trade association(s)
go back
* A title change in 2007 from ... A Brief Guide for Communities and
Entrepreneurs.
go back
The chairman of the Council for Urban Economic Development (CUED), Kurt
Chilcott, announced in the first quarter of 2001 that the American Economic
Development Council (AEDC) merged with his association in order to form the
International Economic Development Council. The new association remains in
Washington, DC where CUED was headquartered, thus providing the best opportunity
for it to continue as a special
interest group representing members from across the USA.
go back
| 
