Cape summer tourism tapers off
by Joseph SantangeloBusinesses adjust to changing trends, as traditional tourism hits a plateau.
It was neither a banner summer nor a bummer summer. The 2005 Cape Cod tourist season shaped up more like a mixed bag. Businesses reported a reasonably good season; not great, but not a disaster. Results fluctuated week to week, town by town, up-scale versus mid-scale.
A cool, damp May and a red-tide June following a snowy Cape winter conspired to depress early season visitors and spending. Tourism rebounded, especially during hot July and August weekends, though apparently not setting new records.
Overall, Cape tourism the last two summers has been flat. Available data suggest demographic and economic realities are changing the Cape tourist landscape for the foreseeable future.
Key data pointing to flat tourism activity included:
Vehicles crossing the Sagamore and Bourne bridges dipped slightly during 2004, after a decade of 1.1 percent average annual increases. Bridge crossings through June 2005 still lagged behind 2003 levels, showing limited numbers of both residents and visitors coming on and off the Cape. The Sagamore Rotary removal could improve future numbers.
Room occupancy taxes collected in Barnstable County on hotel, motel and bed and breakfast rentals fell 7 percent during fiscal year 2004 and increased 2 percent in fiscal year 2005, but still below the fiscal year 2003 peak. This indicates that all-important lodging guests – or “heads in beds” – have hit a plateau in most Cape towns. Some motels also have been converted to condos or affordable housing.
Visitor inquiries at Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce information centers initially lagged last year, though numbers have increased since April 2005 – particularly Web site hits, room availability searches and toll-free telephone calls.
Until three years ago, a Cape Cod Super Stop and Shop saw its revenues drop in half from the summer to the winter. Yet, in the last year, that gap has been reduced by half. That’s not because summer revenues are down, by the way. Here’s something equally as interesting: The average purchase per customer in the summertime is lower than three years ago. Revenues are buoyed by more frequent visits, sometimes lured by Dunkin Donuts and other convenience foods.
Increasingly, the Cape is drawing more year-round and part-year retirees, pre-retirees, second-home owners, long weekenders and people staying with friends and relatives.
Cape tourists on average spend $550 over 2.3 days, while tourists who stay in hotels and motels spend at a rate above the average. While these desirable hotel and motel guests spend more at restaurants, attractions and specialty stores, their numbers are relatively fixed. In contrast, this new type of getaway visitor tends to make last-minute trip decisions after searching the Internet for room availability, price and weather forecasts.
The Cape situation has not been helped by what’s happening across Massachusetts and New England, which as a whole lag the nation in recovering from the 2001-2003 economic downturn, dampening Cape tourism spending. International visitors are down since the September 11, 2001, attacks. However, the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce reports a pickup in international tourists, with three times more foreign travelers stopping at its Route 25 visitor center this July over last July.
Overall, the $1 billion tourist industry has dwindled to 23 percent of the 2004 Cape economy, down from 27 percent in 1997, as other sectors of the economy, such as construction, health care and financial services, have grown at a strong pace.
Some businesses revamping their strategies for 2006 and beyond
Visitor-dependent lodging, restaurants, specialty retailers and summer rentals are revamping their strategies to adapt to this “new normal” tourist economy. For 2006, Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce officials are implementing new tactics, such as attracting more high-end tourists with arts and cultural events. Virtually everyone speaks of the importance of Internet-savvy marketing.
Alan Davis switched this year from running a motel to opening a homemade ice cream shop, Cape Cod Creamery on Route 28 in Yarmouth. “As everybody around here knows, occupancy has been down for a couple of years in the motel business,” he said. Even our regular guests, some of whom had been coming for years, were starting to buy their homes down here. They were not staying with us any longer, but they’d stop by and say hello and say, ‘Hey, we bought a house down here.’”
For his first year in the ice cream business, things have gone pretty much as expected. “From my point of view, it seems I’ve gotten a lot more local business as opposed to tourist business,” he said.
Many restaurants, acknowledging the Cape’s changing demography, use promotions, specials and coupons to bring in local, year-round and part-year residents as well as tourists.
“We’re here in hotel heaven. If they’re not packing them in, it affects us,” said Scott Allen, manager of Clancy’s in West Yarmouth (no relation to other Clancy’s restaurants). He sees fewer families and golfing groups this year. “There’s definitely a noticeable change this year, especially families; our children’s meal counts are way down this year. The golfers, too, aren’t coming down like we used to see. Those are the guys who come down three or four days.”
Summer cottage renters reflect a trend similar to that of hotel, motel and bed-and-breakfast guests: last-minute decisions, often using the Internet and negotiating on price. More Cape Cod second-home owners also mean more properties on the summer rental market.
Karen Ready, rental manager at Pine Acres Realty in Chatham, said, “It was crazy, because in June we had a lot of openings [vacancies] in a lot of houses. We have more rental houses this year than we’ve ever had. Many more people are buying them to rent. [In July and August], we’ve been wildly crazy booking houses. We are probably doing five or 10 leases a week for that next week or two. We are filling in a lot of the holes at the last minute.
“A lot of people were asking for deals, and some of them got deals, though none of us are in the business to accept unreasonable offers. If somebody wanted to offer $2,000 for a $2,500 house, I think that’s a fair deal,” she added.
With extra late-spring mailings and aggressive use of Web listings, her agency expected to match last year’s business, with 800 rentals. “There were several years in a row where we saw tremendous growth, and the last three we’ve kind of stayed the same. But that’s still good.”
New initiatives to attract more Cape tourists hold promise for the future
Dr. Clyde W. Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, said a recent study found that visitors attracted by the growing Cape arts, artisan and culture industry are quite affluent and likely to spend at above-average levels if persuaded to come to the Cape.
The Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, which commissioned the study, will have a new guidebook promoting six arts and culture trails or itineraries on the Cape and Islands. The chamber also is investing in Internet, international and more summer-focused marketing, rather than just spring and fall.
Chamber Executive Director Wendy K. Northcross said, “Our marketing strategy for the last seven or eight years has been to try to even out the peaks and valleys, but we’re just seeing enough really fundamental change in summer travel that we need to be back in there. The really fundamental change is last-minute decision-making. You can’t just advertise in February and think, ‘Oh, yeah, everyone’s thinking about Cape Cod in May.’”
Joseph Santangelo Joseph Santangelo has been a statehouse bureau chief, a corporate executive and currently works for the Connecticut Legislature. 
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