Where is Adirondack tourism headed and how can communities and businesses play a role in shaping the tourism economies in their area? That is the topic of this chapter and the findings may surprise many involved in tourism development and promotion.

We started out by asking the business operators, "How effective do you think each of the following might be in improving the tourism economy of your area?" Over one-half of the respondents selected the "very effective’ category for three of the ten items: improve the quality of offerings (shops, lodges, attractions), better promote the region’s natural resources, and develop better maps showing sites of interest, etc. In the minds of current business operators in the Adirondack Park, action on those three items would go a long way in improving the region’s tourism economy.

It is important to note that the first priority is improving the quality of offerings. That would appear to have a major emphasis on improving what is here, rather than an emphasis on developing new offerings. The interest in and need for business assistance is reinforced by that finding. Improving quality can involve a number of activities, from access to financing and loans, to training in customer service, to better access to information on changing tourist preferences. It also indicates a need for community and local government involvement, because the "offerings" include the appearance of the community, availability of parking, clean public restrooms, and access to popular recreation activities such as boating, swimming, hiking, skiing, snowmobiling, etc.

It is interesting to note differences in perceptions between the sub-group of "motivated" entrepreneurs (i.e., those who have plans to change or improve their business) and the group of all respondents. The motivated entrepreneurs in general see similar priorities among the list of actions, but they hold their views more strongly than the other business operators do. They are more likely to feel that the actions would be "very" effective. In addition, the motivated group perceives tourism planning that accounts for the positive and negatives to be one of the top four priority actions. They ranked it above "developing new attractions," unlike the respondents in general. Another difference worth noting is that the motivated group viewed "improving customer satisfaction" as more effective than all respondents in general.

When looking at actions viewed as "very effective" in specific community areas, the findings from all business operators are borne out, but with important variations by area. For example, better maps were the priority item in North Creek and Inlet. Better promotion of the area’s natural resources was the priority action for the Cranberry Lake and the Long Lake areas, and was the second priority in Indian Lake and Tupper Lake. Those communities are among those that reported lower tourism growth over the past decade. Considering those two sets of responses, the business operators are indicating that they view the environmental attractions in their area as key to their future tourism growth. Old Forge, Speculator, and the Cranberry Lake area see "new attractions" as important to a vibrant tourism economy in their areas.

We also asked a similar open-ended question of the business operators, to provide them an opportunity to describe in their own words the best action that "you, your community, and tourism development organizations could take to assist your community in improving its tourism economy." Those comments are presented in Appendix B by community area. They provide informative reading for those interested in the future of tourism in the study area. There is a very strong emphasis in the comments on community development and tourism planning. Through their statements, the business operators are lending strong support to the community visioning and community development efforts that are occurring around the region. The business operators would like to see more action come out of those efforts. Following are a sampling of the comments to provide a sense of which actions they feel are most important:

Create an atmosphere so people will want to return more than once.

Education in customer service.

Provide indoor recreation for bad weather day and nights.

Work together, get the big picture and plan for the future and a market outside the area.

Paint homes, plant flowers, have pride in the community. Involve tourists in community events.

Bring all Adirondack Park marketing efforts together.

Help with community marketing.

Improving and connecting local snowmobile trails to other towns and systems

Continue developing all forms of linear recreation and insist on quality.

Make tourists aware of the nature the Adirondack Park has to offer.

Save the historic buildings before we have no character.

Develop a trail system that provides day walks that end at a rest stops or sights of interest.

Identify more and better use of the natural environment for day and overnight use. This includes access parking, support systems, rentals, more and better trails.

Mix economic development with tourism to create cohesive future planning.

Improve Internet access and knowledge of how to use the Internet to its full potential.

Business operators are not necessarily economic development specialists, however, almost on a daily basis they see and hear what tourists are looking for when they visit the Adirondacks. Since many of the entrepreneurs also read trade journals, attend trade shows, look at regional and national magazines, and travel for pleasure themselves, they are in a good position to recognize tourism trends. We asked the business operators, as they were indicating the current importance of ten different recreation activities, to also indicate which of them had significant potential for their area. The findings reveal three winter recreation activities at the top of their list: snowmobiling, cross-country skiing and downhill skiing. As indicated by their response, the business operators strongly view a need for building tourism during the off-season and especially in the winter months. It is surprising and informative to note the strong support for cross-country skiing, especially within the category "economic potential." It appears that the business operators do not view snowmobiling and cross-country skiing as mutually exclusive and that the region and individual communities can promote both activities to serve both groups of recreationists.

The interest in snowmobiling and cross-country skiing is reinforced at the community level. Three communities of business operators: in Star Lake-Cranberry Lake, Old Forge, and Long Lake, had the most respondents who picked snowmobiling and cross-country skiing as the two activities having the most economic potential. More Old Forge businesses actually picked cross-country skiing over snowmobiling, likely recognizing the significant economic impact snowmobiling already makes in the area. Some interesting variations by community include the importance given to "viewing birds and animals" in the Inlet area, and the perceived growing importance of bicycling for the North Creek area. These findings, combined with early findings on the current economic contribution of recreation activities, also help to put hiking in a new perspective, at least from the viewpoint of business owners. They view the economic impact and potential economic impact of hiking as equal to or less than two other major dispersed recreation activities: cross-country skiing and paddling (i.e., canoeing and kayaking).

The business operators indicated their current and expected use of a number of common marketing techniques. Those techniques that they are most interested in using are listed at the top of the following chart. "Regional or National advertising" and "Internet Home Page or Web Site" are the marketing techniques of most interest. "Packaging with other businesses" is also very high on the list. Use of the Internet appears to be the item that business owners are most interested in exploring. Brochures and local advertising are currently used most intensively among all the techniques listed. One difference worth noting for the innovator group is that they expressed somewhat more interest in packaging tourist offerings with other businesses. They recognize that packaging is becoming more popular in the tourism industry as it simplifies travel planning for the consumer.

The business operators also indicated their level of interest in different types of business support services. They were most interested in how to increase customer satisfaction. They also were most interested in marketing information about visitors to the Adirondacks, how to market specialty products, and on how to do Internet marketing and sales. The motivated entrepreneurs seemed to hold similar views as represented by all the respondents, but they seem to hold those views to a greater degree. For example, almost two-thirds (65%) said they were "very interested" in how to increase customer satisfaction, compared to 55% of all business operators.

The respondents also indicated their preference for different formats for receiving business assistance. The findings lend more support for computer-based business assistance than might be expected. An "Internet site" was the most preferred of the five formats listed. The motivated entrepreneurs concurred that Internet-based information was the most preferred, but they also lent strong support to workshops, both in community and at a central location. That group of entrepreneurs expressed more interest in workshops than in newsletters.

The preference for internet-based entrepreneurial information is born out by the use of information technologies by the Adirondack Park business operators. They are generally very high tech, or want to be. Over seventy percent are using a computer and another fifteen percent plan to purchase one. Close to ninety percent either have, or plan to have, a computer. Internet sales, searches and advertising lead the list of those technologies the business owners would like to use more. The "plan to try" response on Internet sales and Internet advertising approaches one-third of all businesses, indicated a need for more information and business assistance on those technologies.

Finally, on the health of businesses we asked the business operators about eight possible obstacles. These are obstacles in the sense that they are somewhat out of their control. The respondents selected "availability of qualified labor" as a problem or a major problem more often than any other obstacle. Over one-third (38%) of the business owners said the finding qualified labor was a "major" problem, while another third (30%) said that qualified labor was somewhat of a problem.

The importance of that finding is compounded by the responses of the motivated entrepreneurs, 44 percent of that group reported having a "major" problem with finding qualified labor. That was more than twice the percentage responding to the next major obstacle for that group: the 21 percent who said that obtaining business financing was a major problem. Other obstacles to growth include environmental regulations, financing, and cost of labor and marketing.

When we asked the business owners to then select which of the items is the largest obstacle to their business growth and expansion, one-quarter said qualified labor, 17 percent said environmental regulations and 13 percent said financing. For the motivated entrepreneurs, environmental regulations were much less of a concern. For that group of entrepreneurs, almost a third (31%) said that qualified labor was the major obstacle. One fifth (19%) selected financing, almost twice the percentage that selected environmental regulations as the major obstacle (10%), while nine percent selected the changing preferences of tourists as a major obstacle.

We are also able to look for similarities and differences between communities in terms of obstacles to business growth. As shown in the table, qualified labor is the major issue across almost all of the community areas, lending substantial support to the recognition of it being the most pressing business issue in the Adirondack Park.

When thinking about the future of tourism in the Adirondack Park, the potential adverse impacts of tourism are a concern to some. However, given the general impression that outdoor recreation resources of the Adirondack Park are underutilized during a majority of the year (October – June), the adverse impacts of tourism and the need to address them are seldom discussed. The business operators participating in this study were asked their impressions of a number of potential tourism impact and carrying capacity issues. A majority of business operators recognize that there are a number of recreation use issues that are of concern and that could become problems over the next five years. They appear to feel most strongly about the conflict caused by wilderness regulations, which appears to be the limits on recreational use, such as prohibitions on the use of Mt. bikes, float planes, motor boats, snowmobiles and other motorized forms of transportation. Such prohibitions are sometimes being imposed on non-wilderness state lands as well, further exacerbating conflicts over access and enjoyment of State land. However, respondents were more likely to indicate their concern for other types of impacts, specifically related to noise and water pollution affecting lakes and rivers. Close to three-quarters (73%) of all business operators recognize that noise pollution on lakes and rivers is a concern at some level. Almost one-fifth (19%) see it as a serious problem over the next five years. More than two-thirds (68%) indicated that water pollution from gas and oil is a concern as well. Water pollution from septic contamination (65%) and recreational use conflicts on waterways (64%) are also concerns of over two-thirds of the business operators.

The point of better understanding concerns over recreation use conflicts and impacts was not to identify one issue as more of a problem than another. The business owners are not recreation managers, but a majority of them are in the tourism and recreation business, so if they see a problem or conflict on the horizon then that could be bad for business, and indeed, they do seem to have concerns on a number of the potential problems listed. There are not a lot of business operators seeing "serious" problems related to recreational use, but there are enough perceiving some level of problem to indicate that recreation use conflicts and impacts should be addressed rather than ignored. The business operators would also likely agree that the problems should not be addressed through mandated command and control regulations, but rather through more a more flexible set of regulations that take into account economic impacts, seasonally use, preferences of user groups, etc.

The focus group sessions also addressed this topic of tourism, stewardship and the environment, furthering illuminating local perceptions on issues and planning needs. Education of visitors about the environment was one of the major needs identified in the focus groups. The North Creek, Cranberry Lake and Old Forge focus groups especially noted a lack of interpretation of the environment for visitors to their areas, and noted the difference between the Adirondack Park and national parks where education is an important aspect of the visit. It was felt that a little more education could go a long way in avoiding problems with leaving garbage where animals can find it, recycling, defacing of trees and rocks, proper disposal of gas and oil, etc.

Some of the business operators expressed their belief that protection the environment is weighing too heavily on their shoulders, both directly through the business permitting process and indirectly through limits on recreational use of State land. For example, one new business owner related her experience in establishing a private campground that entailed a two-year effort and permits from seven agencies. In general, the business owners tend to think that given the requirements and restrictions they all are required to follow, that the Adirondack Park Agency (APA) and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) should be more diligent in educating the millions of visitors annually about caring for the Adirondack natural environment. They also perceive a need for more flexibility and site-specific recreation management of non-wilderness lands.

Enhancing the economic impact of tourism rests in part on a better understanding of visitors to the area and of their interests. Most business operators are carrying out market research on a daily basis as a part of doing business. They make note of what their customers like, keep track of what sells, and look to other businesses and other areas for ideas on how to improve their business. What they say they are lacking is information. There is an information vacuum in the Adirondacks on trends in tourism, including both regional and national tourism trends. As one business operator put it, "we tend to have a problem with tunnel vision: we know our own customers’ preferences, but we do not know what new interests are out there that we could be taking advantage of."

"Potential Research Topics" was a subject of discussion during the seven focus group workshops. The preferences of the 65 focus group participants are summarized below under two headings according to what the business operators would like to know about current visitors, and what they would like to know about potential visitors to the Adirondacks.

Where from: in-state locations, out of state, out of country?