According to the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce, the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation and local businesses, tourism plays a vital role in the Jamestown economy. Pictured is a block party in front of the National Comedy Center during the annual comedy festival. Photo by the National Comedy Center

The Jamestown Renaissance Corporation, the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce and local businesses view tourism as an essential component of the city’s economy.

Frank Besse, Jamestown Renaissance Corporation urban core director, described tourism as an “important sector” of the Jamestown economy. He explained that tourism was included as part of the city’s second Urban Design Plan due to its crucial role in the downtown community.

“I think depending on when you look at it, sometimes those tourism dollars don’t make their way into downtown, so making sure that the downtown has businesses and other amenities that are of interest to tourists is really important because it helps downtown but it’s also really important for the tourists,” Besse said.

According to Besse, it is important for tourists to have “varied experiences.” As an example, Besse said tourists in Chautauqua County can enjoy both a “great downtown experience” and experiences such as boating or hiking in nature. He added that the variety of tourist opportunities throughout the county is what makes Chautauqua County an “awesome place” for people to visit.

Besse explained that tourism is part of the “broader local economy,” with attractions, entities and organizations that have existed for many years.

“If you’re going to study this area, you know that it’s not like a new thing, that there’s something that you can build upon,” he said. “You’re not building something from scratch; there’s momentum there.”

Besse said tourism is becoming a “common aspect” of urban planning and development. While he acknowledged that tourism should not be the only thing considered in urban planning, he stressed the importance of it playing a key role in a city’s economic development.

“There’s this element that tourism isn’t new to our region, and that also tourism is an important element of many communities and their vibrancy and their revitalization,” he said. “There’s many things that have been here for a long time and we operate in many ways around word of mouth. That does work if the person at the hotel front desk or at the gas station or at another amenity knows about it, but we have to make sure that we have these other pieces of infrastructure like the Visitor’s Bureau.”

As part of expanding tourism and integrating tourism into the city’s Urban Design Plan, Besse said things like the visitor’s guide serve as important resources that help represent, advertise and promote local businesses and attractions. He added that having a “good online presence” is important for local businesses that want to benefit from tourism.

“We’re not tourists in our hometown, but when we travel, what are the things that we like to see? We like to see things that are unique to that place, so supporting the authentic experiences of our community is something that’s really important,” he said. “As locals, if we can support those businesses and celebrate them that helps tourism. That helps people pay the bills that we call our neighbors and our friends and businesses that we like to frequent.”

‘BRING MORE COMEDIANS’

One of the businesses impacted by the type of tourism described by Besse is Lisciandro’s Restaurant.

Asked about the importance of tourism for their business, Chris and Patti Larson, owners of Lisciandro’s Restaurant, said tourism is “very important.”

The Larsons told The Post-Journal there has been a “large increase” of tourism since the opening of the National Comedy Center, the Lisciandro’s Restaurant has even had famous comedians come to the restaurant for breakfast or lunch.

Asked how Jamestown could increase the impact of tourism on the local business community, the Larsons said the city could bring more comedians to Jamestown and have additional festivals seasonally throughout the year.

‘CRITICAL TO THE SUCCESS’

Like Besse, Dan Heitzenrater, CEO and President of the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce, also highlighted the significance of tourism in the Jamestown community as part of the Jamestown Urban Design Plan.

“Tourism is really key, because it takes the base of business that many of our small businesses see from a year-round resident perspective, and then obviously magnifies that when we start to add the tourist traffic,” he said. “It is just really critical to the success and profitability of our business community.”

Heitzenrater said tourism is not only critical in the Jamestown community, but all throughout Chautauqua County, especially during the busy summer season.

According to Heitzenrater, the Jamestown community has engaged in many efforts to provide quality service to visitors in an effort to grow “travel traffic,” which he said is “really important” for the local business community.

Asked how Jamestown can better capitalize on tourism opportunities, Heitzenrater said the community should continue to “work together and share information” in an effort to “maximize” the impact of tourism throughout Jamestown.

In addition to the mutual cooperation and collaboration of local businesses and attractions, Heitzenrater said the Chamber of Commerce has been working with the Visitors Bureau, the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation and other organizations about the possibility of holding various conferences in the Jamestown community. Heitzenrater said professionals from an organization that plans conferences actually visited the Jamestown area and determined that it could be a “great place” for conferences to be held.

“They felt when they visited our community, that Jamestown really is a great place for smaller size conferences and we offer a lot that many other places don’t, as far as the atmosphere that we have, the attractions we have, which provide awesome places to maybe eat and visit outside of the hours of the conference for people,” he said. “I think that’s an area that I know the Chamber and other local organizations are very excited about trying to grow.”