Loved by Visitors, Built for Residents

Today we’re talking about tourism in Fairport - why we’re proud that people want to visit, and why balancing that popularity with everyday life can sometimes be challenging. We’ll explore what tourism means for our local economy, how it affects residents, and how communities can manage growth intentionally. To help ground the conversation, we’re joined by Katie Dee from Visit Rochester, the official tourism promotion agency for Monroe County and the Finger Lakes region.

Find Fairport OCED Online:

• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Village of Fairport Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI) Website

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, I'm Amy Olds. And I'm Jana Makouey, and we're back with Fairport Forward. We're excited to be back today. We're here to talk about a fun topic: tourism in our village. Tourism is a great thing from an economic development perspective, but it also has to be balanced in a way that suits our village and feels right for our residents. We're excited to be joined by a with our guest, Katie from Visit Rochester.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hi, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Great. Thanks for coming. So, like always, we're here because we did a survey as part of our DRI application. And one of the things that came out from that survey is the feelings from our residents around Fairport as a destination. And Fairport is a destination. It's hard to deny that. We have so many destination-worthy items. We're right there on the canal. We have the towpath as a recreational vehicle. Whether you're a biker, a boater, or just like a shopper, you've probably come to Fairport, especially if you're listening to this podcast. So as that uh destination has um risen on the radar, we want to make sure that the feelings of our residents and the needs of our village are balanced as we embrace that opportunity as a visitor destination. So let's get into the survey, Amy. What did our residents say?

Johnna McCooey 1:24

How are they feeling? Sure. So I have a couple of real comments from the survey that I thought I would share. And I think this resonates and was a little overarching. One, need to make sure that we don't turn into a place where no one actually lives. That's a little right. And then this one I think was interesting. We are proud and love our village, but it's almost too popular. And I thought that was an interesting way that people are starting to feel that upon occasion. I love that people love it, but how far does it go before we let it affect our residents negatively? And how do you balance that going forward? So that's, I think, what we'll get into today. And hopefully we'll get some some insight from you of this register because I'm sure it's not just a Fairport concern, but a lot of our um cute uh neighboring uh villages and towns as well in our region. What can you share, Katie, about any other thoughts you have about that balance that is so important to not losing yourselves in the tourist trap?

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, I think it's important to remember that Fairport as a destination is definitely somewhere that people come to visit for the charm and for the small town kind of feel of it and for the small businesses and everything that Fairport has to offer. So it's important to remember that tourism in Fairport specifically comes from a place of bringing the right tourists into the community and making sure that the people who come to visit the village know that they're there for the charm and the small community that Fairport offers and the canal um access and kind of knowing that it's that it doesn't have to be like a booming tourist town for it to still be a valuable place to come visit.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

It's a good way of screwing at it. So um you said something interesting. Make sure you're bringing the right types of tourists. Um, can you expand on that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, totally. So if there's um someone who's coming in and looking for um walkability or accessibility, um waterfront activities, good small businesses, if they want to shop at a place like Mescalada or they want to go grab a drink at Iron Smoke, kind of um that's the kind of energy that we're looking for. Someone who wants the vibe of just like a cosier kind of community without not necessarily like a big city tourist. So it's just someone who's looking for something a little more um, a little less bustling, maybe a little more focused around like small town activities and um the kind of events and festivals that you guys offer the small businesses that are kind of peppered around the Fairport Village. So I think it just comes down to knowing who you're targeting and making sure those people are seeing the value in Fairport Village.

Johnna McCooey 4:02

Great. Awesome. Yeah, the the feelings are definitely tricky to balance because I, you know, you you hear about, for example, a resident might say, Oh, oh, canal days, I don't stay for canal days, I'm out of here for Canal Day week, uh the weekend of canal days. And so that's disruptive to them, you know, the that amount of folks coming in uh all at once. So to your point, maybe that's okay to embrace that a couple of times a year for some signature events, and it's so important that people learn about our community that way, but every weekend can't be like that. Yeah, or that would you wouldn't want to live there and it wouldn't be a home village for people.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah, and that comes into the seasonality aspect of tourism also, because while Monroe County isn't all four seasons kind of destination, there are certain times of the year where certain villages thrive and certain villages shine. So it's not meant to be like an overarching kind of come to Fairport all the time, always. It is gonna focus around certain events and activities that are gonna draw a lot of tourists in, and then there will be some seasons that are a little slower. But overall, tourism and residents really should work in tandem with each other and be two sides of the same coin rather than working in opposition. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah, that's a great point. Our uh community is really engaged, that's why we're here today. And I can see your point about making sure you're attracting the right kind of tourist. And I think that for us, that means leaning into those unique qualities that make up Fairport. You mentioned the walkability, you mentioned the charm. So when we're promoting Fairport, even though you may hear about it as uh a hotspot or place to go out and have a great night out, um, I think our goal should be more uh on the promotion of those uh softer things like great place to ride your bike down the canal or take a kayak, um your first kayak lesson or experience with your family and start to highlight those less popular, more everyday way of life things that you can visit for because that's what our residents are doing there. That's why they want to live in the village, to enjoy the canal, to experience our charming village. And as you said, those are things that we should be promoting to our visitors as opposed to the latest uh hot restaurant destination, although those are great to have.

Johnna McCooey 6:33

Yeah, you know, I'm thinking about things like the Merchants Association having sip and shops, or I think they're coming out with a new one that's like brunch, brunch timing in the new year. But ooh, maybe I wasn't supposed to drop that, but I think it's coming. Um, and the idea that that's like right-sized for Fairport. It's right-sized tourism because it's it's also leaning into another one of our biggest strengths, some of our boutiques and shops. And it's not, you know, a giant IKEA. It's a it's a it's a walkable strip of cute little shops like Mascalada and out of the basement. And it's just like you can walk, you know, our mile strip and and really get your chocolate, get your ice cream, get you know, get all your fun. Um, and that's really cool. And it leans into our walkability too and the canal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

I saw um one of our village trustees, Adam, posted a thing on LinkedIn and he he led with, Do you want to take a boring walk? No, I don't think so. Right? So people want things that are engaging as part of their experience. Um, but talking about our main street and what we have to offer there, let's talk about some of the benefits of tourism and visitation um kind of on the real. We're here as an economic development office, and tourism is a real economic driver for Monroe County, for the for Rochester and for our village in particular. Um so let's get into some of that. We know that it's good for our businesses, but can you tell us more about the real impact of that those visitors and why we want to continue to attract them?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yeah, totally. So, overall, um, in Monroe County, the travel and tourism industry generates about $1.5 billion annually and around 18,000 jobs. So it's not a small number, and obviously that divvies up between different communities and villages like Fairport, but I think that with that investment coming in from tourist dollars, we're able to put a lot of that back into these communities and these villages to make sure that they remain places that people want to live and work and like experience life in. So it's kind of tourist dollars help to fuel the local economy of these villages and maintain the level of comfort and joy that people find in Fairport. So it kind of all works together and it really is a cyclical kind of relationship between tourists coming in, them spending money at shops or riding the colonial bell or kind of doing these little um local attractions, and then that money being funneled back into these communities to really form a place that people want to live.

Johnna McCooey 9:15

Yeah, for sure. I I always thought, you know, on days when you think, oh, it's too crowded here right now in this moment, but then you think, geez, these are businesses and amenities that are here for the people that live here couldn't survive on our business alone. Like they we need those visitors to come and that repeat visitation so that uh the businesses and amenities that we love so much and that literally make our care a village character can remain successful. You know, like if Skips was only selling steaks to a handful of folks, you know, we need the people that are coming a little further to come and get their awesome steaks from Skips. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

And and further to that point, we saw some real evidence of that this summer. Unfortunately, we had a road closure right on our main street. And while we did our best to support our merchants through different programs and promotions and say Fairport is still open, it did deter visitation. And we heard that directly from our merchants and in particular the ones like right at the epicenter of that road closure, their business did suffer from that lack of visitation. So it's not in theory, it's uh right there in the evidence. Everyday visitation is just as important as the big festivals, the fun days, and the great seasons.

Johnna McCooey 10:36

Are there any secondary effects that, you know, beyond the obvious things that we're talking about that people like me might not realize?

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Um, one thing that comes to mind is I am pretty sure it's on average without the revenue generated from travel and tourism, the average household in Monroe County would have to contribute around $650 more dollars annually to like subsidize that income we'd be losing. So we definitely it's it's like easy to obviously tourism and busy seasons to residents just look like traffic and it's harder to get where you want to go. But overall, it is to the benefit of the people who live in those communities.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

That's a really great highlight. You might not be thinking about how tourism is helping your community, but if we had to replace those tourism dollars with taxpayer dollars, you definitely would be thinking about it and and thinking about other ways that that um we could raise those funds. So that's a really great call out. Thanks for that, Katie.

Johnna McCooey 11:37

Yeah, and I think a lot of new businesses open too because they know that Fairport's gonna get the foot traffic. You know, like it it just um if I'm gonna open up a new boutique and I'm maybe shopping the market around little, you know, different neighboring towns, you know, someone might select Fairport because we have already shown historic success and that balance there of folks coming and shopping at these places, and you know, they only help each other, you know, filling in any like vacancy gaps. Like to your point, the walk is fun, the walk isn't boring, and um the less space you have between this destination and another, it can you don't want that space, you want it filled with other stuff to do and other places to swing into and grab your coffee here and then shop here and keep going and then walk the canal. And um, I just think it's like more just more doesn't have to mean big and and inappropriate. More can mean the right size.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Exactly. So that is a great um segue into what's right for Fairport. We would love to hear your thoughts, Katie. You talked about it a little bit already in um attracting the right kind of tourists. We like on this podcast to talk about the tools now, right? We talked about the feelings and some of the facts. Um, let's talk about some of the tools that we can use to make sure that we're maintaining that balance because that's what's really important to our residents. They recognize the importance of tourism and they welcome it as long as we're, again, being careful stewards of how we build that in our community. So help us with what are some of those tools to making sure we get it right in Fairport.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, I think that you guys kind of hit it right on the head with emphasizing the like the small business aspect of Fairport and the local charm, and that is promoting those things and putting them in front of the right, like the right eyes will help to bring those people into the community and they will spend their dollars in the right places. And I think that that is really the best, the best tool that you guys have is all the local attractions and local events and local businesses and everything that Fairport has going on, is really the only tool that you need to promote an area like Fairport when there is so many because you can go into Mescalada and have one distinct vibe in that store, and then you can go down the street and go into a different store and have like a completely different experience, but you're still in one unified community, and I think that that's a really special thing about Fairport, and that is something that a targeted audience would appreciate about the area as well.

Johnna McCooey 14:08

I like that. Another thing I think that the village does well is management of those larger scale events that we have. You know, I think back to canal days and some of the residents' frustrations can be tied to things like congestion. I can't I can't plan to have my son's birthday party that weekend because there's no way I'm gonna let my family park over here. And so parking, congestion, you know, things as simple as crowd control, safety, trash removal, you know, I think the village does an excellent job of staying on top of that in a way that just shows that we can handle it. We can handle those large events, you know, and we could probably handle a little more, but I think that it's just a testament to the village too and the DPW and all their hard work.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah, definitely. And further to that, that informs how they manage for the rest of the year, right? We've been talking about it's not just about the peak times, but the peak times teach us so much, right? Yeah. And it all of the work around festivals informed the decision to build some permanent public bathrooms at Liftbridge Lane West, where West, West, yes, Lifbridge Lane West, um, a what was formerly a road has been turned into a pedestrian thoroughfare that leads right from the canal into our village. And adjacent to it are some really nice public bathrooms, right? We realize we have all this stuff going on in our village. That doesn't mean there aren't porta potties when there's a festival, but when big things happen, it helps inform what we do every day so we can better manage um the big events, but the regular tourist and visitor flow. And then, of course, that helps us attract more people. And they go, Fairport's a place I want to go, because guess what? I could even like sit here by the canal, have a have a beverage, and then not have to go track down a bathroom because there's a room with the bathroom right there. And there's some place for me to park, and there's some place for me to keep my bike and explore in the village. So the work that we do for the big stuff informs our everyday activity.

Johnna McCooey 16:21

And, you know, it's also shown that we can handle some of the big stuff in a way that we I know through the grapevine that there's been some exploration of an additional event in our immediate area that could potentially be a little more winter focused. So, like whether that can be further developed, you know, it just kind of leans into that. We we showed we've shown already that we can handle that type of volume and to maybe do something off season that is similar, that attracts a larger crowd, that we could handle that and we have the capacity to handle that and to manage that well.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Definitely. So again, it's about balance. Uh, what we do for the slow days helps us get better for the busy days, and those busy days helps keep Fairport in mind for when it's slow. Yeah.

Johnna McCooey 17:08

So remember for Canal Days this year, how exciting it was that I think it was was it Channel 10 or what that came and like broadcasted from the Lyft Bridge. I felt like the morning show right, the today show.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Who was a kiss in Fairport? Um, but then it makes you think about it when you're doing your Christmas shopping and you want to avoid the mall traffic and you go, shop local, where can I do that? I can go to Fairport. And they had that cool little boutique that I visited at at Canal Days. And I remember when I was at the music fest and I um popped into this spot, and I'm gonna go back there when my sister is visiting over the holidays for lunch. So again, the busy times are helping reinforce that visit Fairport in the everyday.

Johnna McCooey 17:51

I saw some uh in researching this episode, this sentiment spoke to me, and it's something we haven't quite hit on, but that residents are more supportive of the concept of tourism when they can see what it's supporting. And I didn't know if that was anything that you could speak to, but just that knowing what the tourism dollars and visitation is actually contributing to their community as a whole. I you talked about some of those dollar figures, but is there anything else you could expand upon about that? Because I found it interesting.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

So that is a little bit of what we do at Visit Rochester with all the events around Monroe County that we promote. I think that that is kind of a direct representation of what tourism dollars can help us accomplish in the county and in Fairport in general. I think that it's a good way to kind of just looking at looking at all the things that are happening and being brought into Monroe County and into Fairport is a good example of what um that revenue generated from tourism can really enable us to do. So in a more general sense, not so much numbers. Okay, that is yeah, that's a good way to look at something and say, okay, we can do this because we've proven that people are interested in this and they will come if we have it.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

That's great. So um that's a really good reminder that it doesn't just have to be us in Fairport making visit visitors come and tourism happen. We've got a great partner with Visit Rochester here in Monroe County. Would love to hear what you guys find in a good partner from a community and what are ways, not just Fairport, but all communities can um benefit from the services that Vin Visit Rochester offers and help be a great partner to mutually attract tourism to our community.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, we have something at Visit Rochester called the Visitor Industry Council, and that is pretty much a group of 500 local businesses, as of right now, around 500. Um, and we meet monthly and we kind of just talk about what's going on in the community and any updates that we have, and we kind of work together to make sure that we're all doing everything we can do to make sure that Rochester and Monroe County is the best place that it can be. So yeah, we're always always looking for for new members to join us and um yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

So our Fairport local businesses could um join that visitor industry council and be more connected to their broader community and hear from businesses like theirs that might be doing the same thing in another neighboring town when and share challenges and share tools and all those things. So how can they how can they get in touch and get get involved?

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Um, I think that the best way is to reach out to our membership department, which is going to be Elena Oyer and Greg Laduca. They are our our connection between Visit Rochester and our small business partners. So that is probably the best place to start, or just on visitrochester.com, there's a contact form that you guys are. Great.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Visit Rochester.com and they can connect with Elena and Greg there. Yep.

Johnna McCooey 20:44

Yep. That is awesome. Yeah, what a great year it's been at Fairport. You know, we were part of the bicentennial celebration for the canal. That obviously brought a huge onslaught of different events within our our village. We had, I think we just got statistics that that bicentennial event day had about 2,000 people here, almost a thousand people toured the uh Seneca Chief when it was stationed here in the village. So, like good momentum we have going this year, and we don't want to lose that as we go forward.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Yeah, um, it's interesting when you hear about numbers in Fairport because if we're talking about just the village of Fairport proper, which we are, um, our population is about 5,400 people. So to have 2,000 people visit on one day, that's a lot. Um, and then when you think about things like Canal Days attracts over a hundred thousand people in one weekend, wow, think about the impact on our our tiny village, the infrastructure, the resources. It's the same DPW staff that supports that village year-round. And they're not staffed to support a town of 100,000 people. So they're really, again, working to strike a balance with what's the right level of support every day, and how do we use those same resources for those big spikes? Um, but again, it's all about balance, what fits for our community and making sure that um we're not too focused on let's focus on attracting, attracting, attracting more visitors, because we have to make sure we're preserving the things that make Fairport great for our residents. All of those small village things, yeah, walkability, character.

Johnna McCooey 22:27

Um, and like you said, it's a cycle because then that's what attracts that's my favorite takeaway from today was what you said about leaning into what we're already uh quote unquote famous for, or just like leaning into our identity, and our identity is that canal town, canal village charm, the charm that everyone loves. We we just had an episode on charm. So leaning into that and not trying to change who we are, but letting um letting who we are guide what's appropriate. Right. Great.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Well, this has been such a great conversation. I hope everybody who is listening is gonna come visit Fairport. Yeah. Yes, come to Canal Days of Music Fest. Come on a time when it's quiet. You can experience all the things that we've talked about today at your own pace, at your own time. And I promise you're gonna have a great time. Thank you for coming today. Thank you so much, Katie. Thank you. Awesome. All right, we'll see you next time. Thank you.