State targeting tourists who work remotely
Two years after the COVID-19 virus cratered tourism nationally, Connecticut is attempting to lure a new type of visitor — workers with the leeway and financial means to work remotely for extended stretches, who might consider a long-term rental in a Connecticut town within reach of activities appealing to families.
The CEO of the state’s lead marketing agency mentioned the initiative Tuesday among several new forays by the state to elevate its visibility to vacationers, while speaking Tuesday afternoon to members of the Bridgeport Regional Business Council. On Tuesday, the office of Gov. Ned Lamont announced Connecticut became the first state to join the International LGBTQ+ Travel Association’s “global partner” program.
While Connecticut has long benefited from tourist magnets that are the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casino resorts, the state’s Office of Tourism is now hoping to play up other locales — specifically, cities and towns that have an array of activities, according to Jill Adams, CEO of the Avon-based Adams & Knight marketing agency who spoke in Bridgeport on Tuesday.
The state plans to launch a series of enhanced tourism websites for a number of cities and towns to get more people interested in fully exploring those communities — perhaps on extended stays.
Adams said that could help draw “digital nomads” in her words who might consider Connecticut as a remote working destination for weeks at a shot, using it as a jumping off point for New England and New York day trips.
“Those are people who can actually work from anywhere,” Adams said Tuesday. “We’re seeing more focus on, ‘hey, I’m going to pick a place to stay for a month. ... Hopefully we can get some of those people to come to Connecticut.”
In its annual survey of employers, the Society for Human Resources Management found that fewer businesses which have remote working policies reported problems hiring or retaining workers, compared to those which have hybrid policies or which require employees to report to facilities for work.
And plenty of freelance and solo workers have significant autonomy in picking a place to live while they work, as their budget and life circumstances allow otherwise.
It is one of several new initiatives for the Connecticut Office of Tourism, whose new director Noelle Stevenson is entering her first summer in the role under the state Department of Economic and Community Development. Stevenson brings years of experience in the mecca of U.S. tourism: Florida, where she worked for both the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.
While nonprofit tourist venues provide a historic snapshot of their revenues in past years through filings with the Internal Revenue Service, gauging the current health of Connecticut’s tourism economy is an imprecise exercise, with no single stream of tax revenue or turnstile count capturing the full amount of spending by residents and visitors.
The CTvisit.org website generated 2.4 million referrals to Connecticut attractions over 12 months through June 2021, whether clicking on web links or reaching out through email or calls. That was a stretch in which many families curtailed travel while waiting for vaccines to protect against the COVID-19 virus.
For the first three months of this year, Mohegan Sun revenue in Connecticut was off 10 percent to $215 million, while Foxwoods was down 22 percent to $148 million. But with the omicron variant of COVID-19 having hit the state hard in January, spring revenue figures should provide a better gauge of spending at the two venues compared to pre-pandemic levels.
On Broadway in New York City the first week of June, ticket revenue was 16 percent below levels for the equivalent week in June 2019, though several shows were generating momentum the second week of June.
After Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, other big Connecticut tourist destinations include Mystic Aquarium and Mystic Seaport in Stonington; Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport; Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk; and Yale University museums in New Haven including the Yale Center for British Art and the Yale University Art Museum.
And Connecticut hosts any number more of onetime events that pull in visitors from the larger region, including The Travelers Championship PGA tournament this week in Cromwell and the Sound on Sound Music Festival slated for September in Bridgeport, with Stevie Nicks, Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds and The Lumineers among those slated to perform.
Connecticut’s largest new entertainment venue last year opened in Bridgeport, the Hartford Healthcare Amphitheater concert pavilion at the former Ballpark at Harbor Yard where the Bridgeport Bluefish minor league baseball team once played.
Downtown restaurants and watering holes have reported a boost in business on concert nights despite upscale concessions stands inside the venue, with “The Amp” having capacity for more than 5,700 concertgoers.
But as the case with neighboring states, Connecticut is dotted with hundreds more tourist spots, the newest being the American Mural Project’s new gallery in Litchfield County that houses a five-story-tall mural which AMP calls the biggest “indoor collaborative artwork” in the world.
“When people come to see and visit, they are looking at towns,” Adams said Tuesday. “They are visiting family and friends and want to see what’s in the area, so we want to make sure that we have a much more robust listing for towns and cities.”
Brian Lockhart contributed to this report.