RE: A Tall Poppy (Editorial, February 28). Settling in with my early morning dose of music, coffee, and The Gazette, I had the pleasure of reading Jason Parks’ editorial on Visit the County, local business, tourism, and Countylicious.
I couldn’t agree more with his perspective regarding the wisdom and benefits of focusing on residents, especially during the shoulder season, to support food & drink businesses in the County.
This can apply during “the season”, too, and also to many more County businesses of all types, for instance retail and services.
Why? Because “pride of place” is THE origin driver of a vibrant and sustainable visitor economy. Without a community that is energized, involved, and excited to share what makes their place special with others, a visitor attraction strategy becomes a very tough go, almost like vapourware.
As a researcher and strategist focused often on destination development, I and the team(s) I work with always start with gauging pride of place.
If there is not enough, the primary focus is on bringing that community in first before you start reaching out for others to come and share. And it doesn’t stop there. Once pride of place is happening, like a fire, it needs to be fed and nurtured to keep it burning.
Happily, there are some moves evolving here in the County that are focused on keeping that fire burning by sharing all our community has to offer with the community in an intentional way.
The best in breed, like Countylicious, provide more reasonable prices of entry, perks, or special discounts to the residents that keep this place humming. A very smart investment.
Mike Farrell, Sophiasburgh
Re: A Tall Poppy (Editorial, February 28). Jason’s Park’s editorial was an enjoyable trip down memory lane. His unique journalistic blend of growing-up-Coun’y knowledge, and masterful literary prose reminds me of the late, great Steve Campbell of County Magazine.
I’ve been in PEC long enough — since 2007 — to have witnessed its gentrification as well as the evolution of Shire Hall’s tourism department.
I came from a Quebec farm and loved the County the way it was before real estate moguls, cottage builders and putt-putt golf started cutting down old growth maple woodlands and plopping bungalows in the middle of prime farmland.
Lucky for us journalists, we don’t have to feel emotions, just report on what is happening. But that’s when everybody gets mad at you because, to them, if you report on it, you endorse it. I documented the building of the 9 wind turbines to the accusations of anti-wind vigilantes. And then I documented the tearing down of the same towers and propellers because that was the news.
The Gazette editorial points out honestly its bias in criticizing Visit The County tourism promotion agency for spending its budget on Internet marketing rather than its own print and online media. I guess VTC is not restricted by a “Buy Local” campaign, but it would seem logical to spend some of its dollars at home.
As a photographer who used to get good paid gigs selling pictures to the County’s tourism brochures and websites, I watched everyone become a good photographer as digital cameras and smart phones took hold. Self-employed stock photographers like me who worked hard for decades to build our archives to sell images long after we retired saw that plan vaporize in the 21st Century.
My — admittedly stereotyped — vision of today’s tourism bureaus is of an office full of 20-somethings who go out and about with their phones, shoot a bunch of hip-looking people doing wineries and dance halls and shopping, then pop it into an app that creates a music video and post it to Instagram for hundreds of “Likes.”
If they need some written content, they are masters of ChatGPT, which will whip together a useable blurb.
As for newspapers and print media, a lot of them are dropping out. People are sitting at home, phones in hand, looking at Facebook community forums to find out what’s happening, both real news and gossip. That is literally the long-time proven formula for weekly newspaper success. I’m not saying it’s quality journalism or ethical journalism. These amateur curators use censorship against people or opinions they don’t like.
Just like Amazon killing the Main Street merchant, you can’t really blame technology if that’s what the customers are choosing.
It’s actually miraculous that so many newspapers and magazines continue to exist here, all telling the same stories and vying for the same advertisers. The Picton Gazette has been here longer than the rest of them and has remained relevant.
Hopefully it will remain on its feet even in the face of this loss of tourism dollars.
Phil Norton, Picton
See it in the newspaper
-1° Fog
