Harrisburg Tourism

Harrisburghas just received the results of a comprehensive tourism study by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in an ongoing effort to become a national tourist destination. The commission’s recommendations include:

• A focus on heritage and historical attractions by joined together by a “Heritage Trail” (think Boston Freedom Trail)
• Expand the visitor’s center downtown
• Improve parking, public transportation, signage
• City group tours
• Proceed with National African American Heritage Center and a National Sports Hall of Fame
• Strengthen Harrisburg’s museum network

I’ll stop short of paraphrasing HarrisburgPa.gov’s site.

These points are all brought up to help Harrisburg stand out from Hershey, Lancaster, and Gettysburg’s tourist attractions. To finance these colossal changes, the study suggests a hotel tax increase by 1 percent.

Overall, there are some nice suggestions made, but my biggest arguments are 1) Harrisburg should focus more on making history, not being it, 2) This study (from what I’ve read about it) doesn’t empower, address, or emphasize the area’s biggest asset–the residents of the surrounding area, and 3) the way in which this study was executed.

Harrisburg has a good amount of history, but it was no Williamsburg or Boston in colonial times. Simply put, it just doesn’t have a lot of interesting history. There are no Civil War battlefields off of Cameron St., no Amish buggies marching regularly along the riverfront, and no chocolate maker’s philanthropic efforts made into landmarks. Emphasizing on Harrisburg’s history is far more relevant than bringing the Wild West East, but who will ultimately be the audience for historic attractions? The answer is the residents of Central Pa., to whom that history is most relevant.

Harrisburg’s residents don’t need signage, many know where the existing visitor’s center is, and many aren’t terribly interested in the city’s quiet history. If this weren’t the case, I’d be able to name more people (other than myself) who have visited Harrisburg’s Fire Museum.

Perhaps a better solution would be to invest the money in beautification and retail. What is one thing that Lancaster, Gettysburg, and Hershey have that Harrisburg doesn’t? How about outlet malls? Retail is an area that hasn’t been sufficiently embraced by the city and existing business owners. Furthermore, it’s something the will generate $$$ and will get the natives coming in rather than going out (heck, I still do my Christmas shopping in Lancaster). As for beautification, well, consult Malcolm Gladwell’s Broken Window theory (man, did I really reference him? ).

Instead of being history, why not work on creating history? Focus on a cleaner city, one that has retail that yields sidewalk traffic, and maybe HYPers will actually live AND play in Harrisburg, rather than commute from their safe Camp Hill homes. Better yet, it will attract culture, which will in turn attract intelligent people, and might actually prevent brain drain (think “brain keep”).

Regarding the study itself, at a $292,540 cost for this study, I have to wonder why an organization for historic preservation would be contracted alone to do it. Their findings were fairly relevant, but very predictable for an historic preservation organization. Why didn’t Harrisburg consult a Giuliani or O’Malley (Baltimore’s mayor)–someone who’s succeeded at bringing their city around? Why didn’t this study mention what to do with the Civil War museum (at least Jason Smith questioned this one…the man still needs a blog. Jason, are you listening?)?

Harrisburg could definitely do worse; the last 10 years have yielded some major improvements, but now’s not the time to dictate what the city needs culturally. Foster a better environment to live, shop, and learn, a place where people go into the city rather than leave for such needs, and the population will grow and ultimately demand what types of cultural needs they want addressed.

Harrisburg’s Cornerstone

I spent an afternoon turning the Harrisburg’s newest coffeehouse addition, Cornerstone Coffeehouse #2 (by the Harrisburg Mall–East Mall for purists that think like me) into my office as I found myself displaced in Harrisburg on a weekday.
The cappuccino was a little too frothy for my taste. The aftermath of my beverage left a foamy residue that consumed nearly half of the cup. The drip coffee was very good, though some of the mysticism felt absent when I paid to pour my own cup out of one of those push button pots.

Okay, enough whining. I am happy to say that this new branch wins my seal of favorite coffee shop in the area. The interior is nice, they’ve carried over the grassroots effort of decorating the walls with local photography, the staff was extremely friendly, and the free wireless rounds out a perfect latte-sipping environment. Now if they could just expand upon those hours…