Branding is everything for Southern Tier tourism

What's in a name?
A lot, according to Southern Tier tourism officials.

Ellicottville is known for skiing. Chautauqua for the institution and Allegany for the state park.

But, as a region, the tri-county area in the Southern Tier has no collective brand name or identity.

Until now.

By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, leaders in the Southern Tier should have a good handle on a potential brand name/identity for the region that they can use to market on a regional and national level.

Consultants from the Rudder Group and Longwoods International, two Toronto firms that specialize in creating tourism industry brand names and/or in, are expected Nov. 19 to make some recommendations to the Southern Tier tourism industry leadership. The firms are expected to offer several new brand names for the region.

"We're hoping they give us a name that can satisfy all the individual needs in the region," said Dennis Eshbaugh, president of Win-Sum Ski Corp., parent company of Holiday Valley Ski Resort in Ellicottville.

Currently, the tri-county area has a rather mundane brand name, the "Chautauqua Allegany Region." That's a name that may mean something in Buffalo, but fails to register outside Western New York.

"I'll be the first to admit that `Chautauqua Allegany' doesn't mean much," said Brian McFadden, executive director of the Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce.

Rudder and Longwoods conducted the $115,000 study at the request of the Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau, Ellicottville Chamber of Commerce, Allegany County Tourism Bureau and Cattaraugus County Department of Economic Development, Planning & Tourism. Several private sector businesses also helped fund the study.

Rudder and Longwoods, first, identified in hard numbers just how large the tourism industry is in the tri-county area and then, began working on creating a marketable identity.
"We all want to get a better bite out of the tourism market," McFadden said. "We want to come up with something that puts us on everyone's shopping list when it comes to tourism possibilities."
A brand name, by itself, won't beef up the region's tourism coffers.

There must be the attractions in the region to sustain the interest.

"Fortunately, we have a lot of `I did it' things in the region including skiing, hiking and horseback riding," McFadden said.

McFadden said his group is looking to the Finger Lakes for an example of how a region can band together to market itself.

A group covering Schuyler, Steuben and Chemung counties last year created the Finger Lakes Wine Country moniker. With the brand name, officials estimate that $11.4 million in new money came into their region because of the identity. The revenues came from a reported 130,000 new visitors to the wine country region.

"When we launched this initiative, our goal was to reposition the tri-county area as a destination of choice," said Anne Parker, managing director of the Finger Lakes Wine Country Tourism Marketing Association.

The association's brand name and follow-up study, conducted by Longwoods International, found that identity did help bring a new wave of tourists into the Finger Lakes region.

"The study confirms the success of our initiative in not only helping raise awareness of the attractiveness of the area, but also in getting people, who otherwise, would not have visited the area to do so," Parker added.

Tourism, which is the state's second largest industry, is already big business for Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Allegany counties.
Initial findings from the Rudder Group/ Longwoods International study found that tourism has a direct annual spending impact of more than $208 million. Tourism, according to the study, has created more than 11,000 jobs in the region and those workers have a collective payroll of more than $115 million.
Just in Cattaraugus County, home to Ellicottville, lodging revenues jumped from $4 million in 1991 to $10 million in 1999.

The need to create a brand name and identity for the Cattaraugus-Chautauqua-Allegany region has intensified in the months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Tourism industry officials believe there is a new wave of people looking to make "one tank" trips to regional destinations rather than longer and more distant vacations.

The brand name will also help the tri-county region fill-in soft dates. Ellicottville, for instance, has a strong winter season thanks to the presence of Holiday Valley and Holimont ski resorts. Chautauqua's strength comes from the vast number of people who visit Chautauqua Institution in the summer while Allegany's peak season is the early fall when hikers come to Allegany State Park to take in the prime foliage.

"Each county has its own asset," McFadden said. "But, we need to find a way to market the entire package."

Eshbaugh agrees the regional brand name is essential in capturing more tourist dollars.

"Regional destinations tend to be very popular," Eshbaugh said. "And, we do view ourselves as a regional destination."

The tri-county area, particularly Ellicottville, is -- besides Niagara Falls -- one of the true regional spots that draws people from outside Western New York.

Ellicottville draws as many people from Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada as it does from Western New York. Maybe more.