Tourists are pining for the silo and Dutchess County is harvesting the benefits.
Dutchess County Tourism (DCT) has been piloting one-day weekend tours of area farms and villages this summer in conjunction with Metro-North railroad, and so far the response has been excellent, with 180 participants halfway through the schedule.
“We didn”™t know what to expect, and I”™m very happy with the results we”™ve had,” said Mary Kay Vrba, director of DCT, noting that on the sheets handed out at the end of the tours, “our evaluations have been wonderful. The package people purchase includes the train ticket and bus ride. When they get to the individual places, they decide if they want to do a wine tasting and pay extra for it, or pick their own produce.”
After boarding the train at Grand Central, or elsewhere on the Metro-North line, participants arrive at the station in Beacon, Poughkeepsie or Wassaic, depending on the itinerary. The county LOOP bus system picks them up and transports them to the day”™s attractions, which include one or two farms or wineries and an hour or two visit in an urban center or historic village.
There are five itineraries scheduled consecutively in blocks on weekends, from June through late October. Two of the tours are geared for families. The Fall Family Farm Days, for example, scheduled for September, will stop at Sprout Creek Farm, distinguished by its artisan cheeses and grazing goats and cows, and at Barton Orchards, where kids can take a hayride and visit a petting zoo, before winding up the afternoon in Beacon.
Participants on the Food and Wine Weekend, scheduled July through mid-August, make a stop where they have a choice of three attractions: the Alison Winery and Vineyards, with tastings available for $5; Gigi Market, where they can snack on homemade gelato, baked goods and other goodies after browsing the gourmet store; and Greig Farm, where they can pick their own blueberries. The tour also spends time in Rhinebeck, before returning to the Poughkeepsie train station.
“We are located off the beaten track on a farm, so it”™s always very helpful” to work with the tourism department, said Laura Pensiero, owner of Gigi Markets, which rents space at Greig Fram. “This has been great. We want people to see the market and our services. This gives someone from the city a taste of the Hudson Valley.”
Pensiero said the tour, which was scheduled over six weekends, also prompted her to do an afternoon barbecue featuring local pork and beef, which she plans to continue until Labor Day. “It”™s extra revenue and great exposure.” The appeal for tour participants is not only the “magnificent views” of the Red Hook countryside from the bus, but also the reasonable price, she added. The price per adult averages about $25, with an approximate $6 discount for seniors; kids age 2 to 15 are $3.50 to $4.50, with younger children free.
Vrba said the spark for the tours was a $50,000 grant from the state, which is subsidizing the bus transportation. An advisory group of business people and farmers was organized to decide destinations and hash out details. Twelve farms and farm markets are participating. “We sat down and pulled together the itineraries and timed them out,” including trial bus runs, Vrba said.
DCT invested $25,000 in publicizing the tours, with advertising running in The New York Times and newspapers owned by Manhattan Media, on CBS radio and the Internet. Vrba said Metro-North also printed 100,000 brochures and it includes the Farm Fresh tours, as they are branded, on its Web site. The tours are also listed on a special link on the Dutchess County Tourism Web site.
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Vrba said she hoped the grant money would be available next year. She”™d like to expand the offerings to overnight tours, with participants staying in local B&Bs and hotels. She noted that her organization has held package workshops for hoteliers “to show them how to put packages together and encourage them to partner with each other. They can put these on our Web page or on the getawaynewyork.com site,” which is operated by the state.
Metro-North is developing parking areas for rental cars, which would be another component of the overnight tours. Zipcar, a car-share service available at the Beacon Station, is another possible partner.
Vrba would also like to target the international market, particularly the United Kingdom, and is working to incorporate Dutchess County into a driving tour to Niagara Falls, a perennial favorite of foreign tourists. “We”™ve had several FAM (familiarization) tours and brought tour operators in to see the area,” she said. “As a region we”™re also attending the World Travel Market in the U.K. in November.” Vrba said she will be wearing her hat as president of Hudson Valley Tourism, the coalition of 10 county tourism offices, at the event.
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Culinary Institute tour
A number of regional-themed packaged overnight tours are already listed on the DCT and getawaynewyork site, including “Secrets of the CIA,” “Girlfriends”™ Getaway,” “A Farm Has Many Faces” and “A Romantic Sail and Stay,” which includes a night at the Hampton Inn, a two-hour sightseeing cruise out of Newburgh and discounts at a restaurant or wine bar. Vrba said the success of the packages is “hit or miss. Sometimes one does well and another has nobody.”
DCT sends out press releases on the packages and posts them on its Web site. The tours are priced inclusively, with the Girlfriends”™ Getaway, for example, costing $365 per person for one night”™s lodging in Hyde Park, dinner, admission to a drive-in, a massage, lunch, a winery tour and tasting, and admission to the Bananas Comedy Club in Poughkeepsie.
The challenge in putting together the packages, Vrba said, is “finding the time. A lot of people who participate have a small business” that”™s all-consuming. “It does take a commitment. You have to write these things up and work with other people on how to make a certificate redeemable and figure out the pricing.” Sometimes, she added, no one will book a package initially, but the next year they”™ll look for it, so ideally the participants would be involved for the long term.
Vrba said Hudson Valley Tourism spent $75,000 this year on advertising, “which is not much. It”™d be nice to have $200,000 or $300,000 and come up with defined markets.” She said Gov. Eliot Spitzer increased the state tourism budget by $5 million for the 2007-2008 budget, for a total $19 million in the I Love New York program. Of those funds, $5.2 million is available to the counties on a matching basis.
The total budget for Hudson Valley Tourism is $175,000, which has included brochure distribution, advertising, printing of a travel guide, two new maps, trade show attendance, an 800 number and Web site, hosting of FAM and press trips and memberships in national organizations.
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