Golden: Heritage tourism in MetroWest

In 2010, upward of 20 million people (more than three times the number actually resident in Massachusetts) came to visit our state. Many vacationed on Cape Cod or in the Berkshires, while others, here on business, stayed in or around Boston.

According to figures compiled by the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism (MOTT), while those 20 million visitors were here, they spent a whopping $15 billion. Not a bad number for local businesses and institutions, when you think about it.

While MetroWest had no formal tourism program in 2010 (our new Visitors Bureau was still in formation), visitors spent over $500 million in the region, mostly for hotels, food, and shopping, but also for things that might surprise you.

As one of 16 regional tourism regions in the state, MetroWest is beginning to do what it should have undertaken years ago: develop a unique brand identity all its own.

Why is this so important? Metropolitan regions like Greater Boston have become key drivers of the world economy, as Michael Porter explains with great clarity in his landmark book, “The Competitive Wealth of Nations.”

Among those coming to Massachusetts expressly as tourists, slightly over a quarter are here to see family or for social events. But right along with them are those with interests in history and culture, which is why destinations like the Freedom Trail, Old Salem, Newburyport, Plymouth and Old Sturbridge Village have become such magnets for visitors.

By the same token museums, orchestras and our scores of little theatres and art centers scattered throughout the region are significant attractions. So is shopping, of course, and highlighting our malls and specialty stores, along with quality lodging and restaurants will help bring visitors to us, so will new ways of promoting the Boston Marathon, always a reliable draw for the region.

But heritage and cultural tourism, in whatever form, produce over $3 billion annually for Massachusetts’s institutions and businesses. The two combined, along with sightseeing are of greater interest as attractions than even shopping for those coming to the Bay State.

Of the over one million visitors to Massachusetts arriving here from abroad last year, including growing numbers from Europe, many came to share in that most profound of experiences: strengthening their own identities by connecting with the past.

Notably, over 40 million Americans, who comprise the bulk of all visitors to our state, are descended from New England’s first English settlers, (who arrived in what has been called “The Great Migration” in the era prior to 1645).

For those seeking their roots, there’s no place like Massachusetts. Whether you’re descended from old Yankee stock and in town for a week or you recently arrived here from Russia, Japan or India for a new job, the American epic is endlessly fascinating. No matter who you are, Massachusetts qualifies as part of America’s historic heartland.

Except for MetroWest.

Lost in translation as our region morphed from “South Middlesex County” or just plain “Middlesex” in the 1990s are the people, places, events and institutions that defined our own 350+ years of history.

Our townscapes, landscapes, roads and waterways are all enriched by history, with town greens, graveyards, woodlands, trails and lakes endowed with endless stories, each more fascinating and often compelling than the last.

Tory officers, spies, traitors and ice kings, utopian ministers, Indian warriors, refugees from the Salem Witch Trials (including judges, accusers and accused), Minutemen, Civil War soldiers, farmers, sports champions, shoe makers and in our own time, technology leaders make for a fascinating tale.

Also, walking trails, bike paths parklands, farms and open spaces are slowly attracting a new and highly sophisticated group of visitors called “ecotourists,” who love to settle in to a region (it’s called “destination tourism in the trade) and explore it in all its dimensions, both natural and man-made.

But to date, no one has created a coherent narrative that makes MetroWest a real tourist destination. Local history societies and historic commissions are making progress, but to paraphrase Gertrude Stein’s famous indictment of Oakland, until we stitch together a ready explanation (with a website, place signs and other interpretive materials) of where we have been and where we are going, there will be “no there, here” with regard to MetroWest.

To make all these things accessible takes planning, organization and skillful marketing, tasks that just now are getting under way through the efforts of Susan Nicholl and the MetroWest Tourism and Visitors Bureau.

Under the leadership of local organizations like Framingham’s History Center and the Natick Historical Society it’s time to reclaim our heritage, perhaps even through the formation of a region-wide history collaborative.

I am not sure the MetroWest business and political communities have entirely grasped the larger opportunities encompassed by a region-wide, ongoing marketing initiative (Full disclosure: I sit on the bureau’s board of directors.). But it is clear to me that a concerted and widely supported effort will be required to bring the region to the attention of potential visitors from Turin to Tokyo and Timbuktu.

The Visitors Bureau, with the help of our region’s chambers of commerce, is now working out the mechanics of that process. But a broad-based, collaborative effort and serious engagement with the business community will be required if real success is to be achieved.

Tourism is a highly competitive, long-term game played out across countries and continents. If MetroWest is to become a real player in that league, the time to start training hard is now.

Peter Golden of Natick writes about history and the environment. Email him at psg@goldenpr.com.

 

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