Tory Irgang stepped in for Vince Horrigan and Randy Sweeney to introduce our speaker Andrew Nixon the President and CEO of Chautauqua County Visitor’s Bureau where he has been employed since January 1991. Prior to that, Andrew was the Managing Director and Marketing Coordinator for the organization. Before working at the Visitor’s Bureau, Andrew worked for Chautauqua Institution for three years as Assistant Marketing Director.
Andrew and his wife Elizabeth (Liz) are graduates of the State University of New York at Fredonia. Both are transplants to the western New York area having originally come to Fredonia from Memphis, TN (Andrew) and the Hudson Valley area of New York (Liz. They now live in Jamestown, NY where they have raised four children.
Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau is a 501 c 6 non-profit association dedicated to promoting Chautauqua County as a visitor destination. CCVB conducts a few programs intended to reach interested vacationers and visitors and to assist them in the process of learning about and visiting the Chautauqua County area.
Nixon began his discussion by indicating that today’s visitation figures are much stronger than before the Pandemic. In 2023, there was $314 million dollars in direct visitor spending in Chautauqua County which is an 11% increase since before the Pandemic. Because of Covid, people couldn’t travel, and many were living in fear. In 2020, there was a 45% loss of local tourism revenue - $125 million was GONE. New York State lost 65% of its travel revenue and New York City lost 80-85% of its visitor revenue – it was CATASTROPHIC!
Chautauqua County tourist revenue is seasonal and therefore it is easier to rebound and therefore not so far to climb back. Outdoor recreation has shifted our income and especially our beautiful lakes.
There was NO programming in the summer of 2020 at Chautauqua Institution. People spent more on lodging because the perception was that rural areas were safer. Travel was not easy, however our county had better pickings.
In 2021, Chautauqua Institution offered a hybrid season, while others struggled. Festivals and outdoor dining increased and helped somewhat, but there were still NO group activities – especially weddings.
In 2022, Chautauqua Institution resumed its programming and considerable outdoor entertainment which was abundant and pervasive. Group travel planning (which takes about a year to come to fruition) began increasing again.
2024 is now on a par with activities in 2023. We will know exactly where we stand by the end of the third quarter in October.
The 150th anniversary of the founding of Chautauqua Institution was a tremendous help and interest in the increase. Nixon indicated the CCVB hosted 6 to 7 groups of travel writers and the Harbor Hotel, and the Athenaeum Hotel reported an increase of 3,000-night stays. Much of their success was also prompted by increased outdoor entertainment in places such as Bemus Point and Truffle Honey Restaurants.
On a less positive note, chain hotel lodging was down and fell flat. The region faced the same challenge as other areas – staffing struggles. As discretionary income has increased, competition from other tourism areas has also increased for those dollars. Our county faces continual need for increases in advertising dollars.
Chautauqua County has negative perceptions to overcome tied to our Lakes such as weeds and algae growth and bacterial closure of beaches affects us as well. Another negative perception is the increased attention to the homeless situation.
The County still has the opportunity for increased tourism growth by expanding our marketing budget. Currently private organizations and businesses spend approximately $225,000 annually. Part of the county’s occupancy tax goes towards advertising, but we could always spend more.
We also need to expand the visitor experience by improving walking and biking trails, and snow mobile trails in the winter and improving access to those trails. Unfortunately, the lack of cold and snow in recent years has not helped the skiing and snowboarding activities. Product enhancement and improvement is essential such as adding new festivals and attractive destination events.
This area needs to maximize the summer period, expanding the shoulder seasons of spring and fall; expanding group travel, which could provide a huge infusion of dollars to our economy.
One major question from the audience was – how the lack of air service affects our tourism and Mr. Nixon replied that it certainly has an effect. When you compare the difficulty of getting to Chautauqua County with travel to other areas near us, it is obviously much more complicated and time consuming than travel to other tourist destinations.
