The Creative Economy

Last night I attended a meeting sponsored by the local Tourism Council designed to bring together business and organizations involved in the local tourism industry. It was an encouraging meeting with about fifty people present representing inns, motels, restaurants, and various organizations including museums, art galleries, artisans, etc. The purpose of the evening was simple --- to see if we could all find ways to work together to offer visitors to Gloucester a more diversified and culturally rich experience. A lot of ideas got born.

What I learned, I guess i never knew this, is that when visitors stay in local inns they rely heavily on the expertise of the innkeeper to advise them of where to shop, eat, and enjoy themselves. The more material the innkeepers have to draw on, the more they can offer their guests. Quite a few of the innkeepers talked about this and we brainstormed on ways to supply the innkeepers with regularly updated and current information about what is going on.

Some years ago I had this bright idea that I called Inn Touch with Art. It was a collaborative program between local inns and local artists and performers. The artists and performers would come up with a list of things they could offer to show their work --- poetry readings, musical performances, painting demonstrations, author's talks, etc. The innkeepers would offer the space in which to do this. A solo musician could perform in the parlor of a B&B, an artist could hold a painting demonstration in the garden, etc. Both the inns and the artists would promote the events through their web sites and flyers in their places of business and a schedule would be created monthly that would be distributed through all the local visitor's centers.

I knew that it would be a lot more complicated than it sounds and would require a tremendous amount of dedication on someone's part to get it off the ground but I keep thinking about it and hope to someday find a way to get it going. I think last night's meeting might prove to be a good starting place.

There was a lot of discussion of creating "packages" too. A package could consist of a discount at an inn, as well as at a couple of restaurants, and a list of events going on at various places ranging from the art associations to the whale watches and more. All of this is really interesting to me because I have been involved with the trend toward a creative economy economy. Many of the artists, writers, and artisans whose web sites I manage want to draw the attention of visitors to our area. I also do web sites for inns and function halls that rely on tourism and want the most to offer their guests. It's all loaded with potential and just requires organizing. When I design web sites I often recommend that lists of links be added and, in some cases, we also add a blog where the site owner can keep guests and/or customers updated on the latest things they have to offer. One guest house even posts recipes and restaurant recommendations to her blog.

We are living in times when business is changing drastically and requires a great deal of creativity to succeed. Creativity in two forms --- being creative in how you market what you have to offer and tapping into the allure of the art offerings that are so abundant in a place like Gloucester. Cultural Tourism is a growing market and, in an area like this where this such a super-abundance of cultural offerings, a little creative marketing can yield some very worthwhile results. The internet is, of course, one of the best tools most of these businesses have to make use of. Most travelers today spend a lot of time online researching the areas they plan to travel to and having a web site that is both beautiful and informative is a great start.

So Thursday I am going to another meeting for a new "package" called The Art Lover's Package. We hope to come up with some creative ideas for offering an intriguing package to cultural tourists. This is an exciting and creative opportunity for local arts organizations and local businesses to partner to create, create, create.

Thanks for reading.