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Kristin D'Agostino
Jalyn Maxham, 6, of Sarasota Fla., looks astonished by a street magician on a recent summer afternoon. Foreign and domestic tourists flooded into Salem in record numbers this year.
Summer boom bodes well for Halloween tourism, say the experts
By Lisa Guerriero/salem@cnc.com
Thu Sep 06, 2007, 03:03 PM EDT
Salem -The city logged record numbers during the summer months, with more than 210,000 people visiting in June and July.
“It’s been phenomenal,” said Peter LaChapelle, chief of visitor services for Salem’s Maritime-National Historic Site. “We’re up about 30,000.”
If the 2006 numbers and this summer are any indication, the peak fall season of 2007 is on path to exceed previous years as well. October 2006 saw more than 193,000 visitors, up from more than 158,000 in October 2005.
Last year’s September and November totals — 61,476 and 36,626 respectively — were higher than they were from 2002 to 2005. Like most tourists destinations, Salem saw a steep dip in visitors after Sept. 11, 2001, but, LaChapelle said, “slowly we have started to move forward.”
It’s hard to tell whether Salem has enjoyed a second-hand boost in Japanese tourists due to the numbers flooding Boston after Daisuke “Dice-K” Matsuzaka was signed to the Red Sox. But the Japanese are among the Asian visitors who are increasingly streaming into Salem, said LaChapelle, so it’s possible.
Speaking to the Gazette last week, he had just finished giving a program at the Derby House that included two sets of young Japanese couples.
“The Japanese have always been interested in Salem,” he said, largely because many read a translated version of “The House of Seven Gables” in school, just like Americans do. “They have a real affinity for Nathaniel Hawthorne.” As a result, they enjoy visiting sites like the Custom House and Seven Gables.
Foreign visitors, in general, are coming to Salem more and more. LaChapelle credits the exchange rate, which favors other countries more than America these days — especially Asia, Europe and Canada.
Witchcraft, of course, remains Salem’s main draw, said LaChapelle and Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rinus Oosthoek. But as the city seeks to showcase Halloween and the Salem Witch Trials as just one of the city’s appeals, it appears there are a number of tourists who have figured that out already.
In August, Wisconsin couples Judy and Leo Palacios and Deby and Gary Tosic were visiting Salem for a few days before moving on to Boston.
Their primary motivation for visiting Salem, they said, was “the history.” But while they mentioned the Salem Witch Trials, they first referred to the architecture and the preservation of older buildings and homes.
“I love the red line (indicating a historical route),” Judy Palacios said, adding, “The culture is so different from home.”
Tourism innovation
It helps, said LaChapelle, that visitors can reach Salem by train, car and now by boat, thanks to the Salem Ferry. Now in its second season, the ferry is doing better than ever, said Bill Walker, who operates the service.
“Basically we have had, through August, a 25 to 30 percent increase over last year,” Walker said this week. “At the end of August we’ve had over 50,000 people, from start of season (in late May).”
Commuter trips have stayed about the same, in the neighborhood of 50 people per day. The increase comes largely from the tourism and local-traveler end, thanks in park to a major marketing push. There are more people using the ferry to take daytrips to Salem, and more North Shore residents taking advantage of the service to catch dinner or a play in Boston.
“We’ve had rave reviews of the vessel and the whole service,” said Walker.
In Boston, the tourists and hotel workers tell Walker they love taking day trips and overnight stays in Salem and traveling back and forth on the water. “They say it’s a unique thing to do,” he said. “The mayor’s tourism push has really paid off in spades.”
The Salem Ferry is now in the midst of another push, this one to increase riders in the fall season. A one-way ticket from Salem to Boston, normally $21.95 for an adult, is now offered for $7.95 per person.
Riders from the South Shore can also travel all the way to Salem by boat for $25, stopping to change vessels in Boston. The fall marketing is ideal for the warm and sunny weather the North Shore has enjoyed in the last week, Walker said.
The ferry will also offer extended service on Halloween, as it did last year.
The ferry helped give rise to two pedicab services this summer, Witch City Rickshaw and Salem Pedicab, which shuttle visitors to and from the ferry dock on Blaney Street and also tour them around historical and tourist spots.
Oosthoek, the chamber director, said he’s seeing more and more teamwork and collaboration among tourism stakeholders, including the effort to make the Haunted Happenings brochure fresher and more concise. “The Haunted Happenings people are really pulling together,” he said.
Tickets have been on sale for several weeks for the new Haunted Passport program, launched by Mayor Kim Driscoll with the business community. Designed to create customer loyalty that stretches throughout the year — the pioneer season runs from Oct. 1 to next April 30 — it also offers prime discounts and incentives for October visitors.
The program’s Web site (www.hauntedpassport.com) is up and running, offering $350 in savings at more than 75 businesses for a reasonable $13 a pop.
It doesn’t hurt that the Web site is being marketed by King Fish Media, a Salem-based company that’s earned accolades, like a spot on Entrepreneur magazine’s Hot 500 list of the fastest growing companies. The 6-year-old company helped bring in media sponsors like the Boston Globe and Mix 98.5, and, said Oosthoek, is helping the city with thinking creatively and “staying fluid.”
King Fish also created a seven-minute video — whose cast includes a remarkably straight-faced Mayor Driscoll — spoofing a scenario where Halloween is threatened when the Passports go missing. The video, which can be seen on Youtube and on the Salem Gazette site (www.thesalemgazette.com), plugs the Haunted Passport Web site and program, various Salem hotspots and the overnight giveaway customers can win when they buy a passport.
As of Tuesday, the video had netted more than 350 hits on www.youtube.com. The city and King Fish will share the profits of the program.
