Using your community’s history and arts to
attract visitors is sound economic strategy.
Moving tourists to and between sites via
driving tours is a tried-and-true method.
But where did this concept of tying together
the odds and ends of an area’s heritage and
marketing them as a unit come from? One of the
first programs in the nation to recognize and
tap into an inherent industry—the past and its
rituals—originated in the mountains of North Carolina.
HandMade in America, which more or
less forged the original heritage trail, is now
the grandma of all heritage driving tours. Here,
a mature heritage tourism program shares its story.
In the ancient hills and dales of western North Carolina live
people who have eked livings from the steep, rocky earth and
carried
on Native and Old World traditions for centuries. Being rural
kept the traditions—crafts, specifically—pure. No
second-rate materials, no cutting corners to meet quotas. These
are as authentic a bunch of folks as you’re likely to meet
anywhere in the country. And so are their crafts, which, while
considered art forms today, grew out of necessity in a remote
wilderness: pottery, blown glass, wood-working, weaving.
In the 1980s and ‘90s, Western North Carolina felt the
drift outward by its home-grown children who sought stronger
economic markets in which to make their livings. Difficult terrain,
lack of infrastructure, and unimproved road systems prevented
many
industries from locating to the mountainous region. Of the 23
counties that eventually came under the crafts program, 14 are
considered “economically distressed” by the North
Carolina Department of Commerce.
Local economic development strategists realized they would need
to look inward for resources on which to build. They considered
the huge concentration of folk arts and realized they had an
existing invisible industry of craftspeople. To organize and
promote this inherent industry, strategists formed the nonprofit
HandMade in America in 1993. With funding from the North Carolina
Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development, HandMade researched
the profile of heritage travelers to the region so they would
know their target market, then the group applied for and received
a three-year organizational development grant from the Pew Partnership
for Civic Change. More than 360 citizens participated in a regional
planning process to help determine how HandMade could establish
western North Carolina as the center of handcrafted objects in
the nation.
But getting from recognizing the value of its environmentally
friendly industry that employs 740 full-time and 3,300 part-time
workers who contribute more than $122 million to the local economy
annually, to organizing and marketing it as an economic development
tool took some seriously hard work and a whole lot of flying
by the seat of the pants.
Becky Anderson, HandMade’s executive director explains. “We
set out to find the elusive balance between
protecting sacred places and encouraging the growth of tourism.”
HandMade in America developed a system of trails to take visitors
down back roads and steep mountain lanes directly to the artisans
themselves. To tell tourists the who, why, and where, HandMade
published in 1996 a guidebook, The Craft Heritage Trails of Western
North Carolina, the first such guide to take visitors onto the
private property of artisans.
“My dad started our family business 15 years ago,” explains
Brad Dodson of Mud Dabbers Pottery and Crafts of Waynesville
and Brevard. “His philosophy is one of being open and sharing
his knowledge about his art. He welcomes visitors into the studio
and shares with them what he’s doing. This way customers
not only get to see the mug or the vase being made, they can
take part in the essence of seeing it produced by meeting the
artist and talking with him while he’s creating.” Brad,
his father, John, and his brother, their mother,
and sisters all create pottery and work in the shops. “By joining up
with the HandMade group,” continues Brad, “we were
able to market more widely than we would have on our own. Their
philosophy meshed perfectly with ours and the Heritage Trails
book is a great marketing tool.”
The trail concept worked. Statistics prove the viability of
this ingenious endeavor. But, as Anderson points out, “You
just learn so much every single day. We had
no one to copy, no one to emulate to demonstrate the best course
of action.
And we made mistakes. But we’re smart enough to learn from
them and make changes.” Although not fully formed at
the outset, the process of establishing
the trails provided practical lessons.
What Happened Next
One of the first steps in choosing sites and partners for the
Heritage Trails publication was to develop selection criteria.
Anderson says it is very important to adhere strictly
to the criteria. Why? “Making exceptions creates confusion
and hard feelings and may compromise the focus of the publication,” explains
Anderson. HandMade has developed a laundry list of requirements
that must be met by sites that want to be included in the book.
These criteria have evolved over the course of the program in
response to issues that cropped up during the formative stages.
Trail planners should consider these questions: Is the site
well marked, safe, and easily accessible? Do the proprietors
maintain regular hours? Important for shops and galleries, yes.
But even more so when a
visitor has just journeyed down two miles of winding gravel road
to find an esoteric artist’s studio. Is their business—whether
it is a working studio, retail shop, gallery, restaurant, or
bed-and-breakfast—in sync with the economic and cultural
interests of the community? In the case of HandMade in America,
shops and galleries must feature American-made crafts with an
emphasis on those from Western North Carolina. Restaurants must
feature indigenous mountain foods as part of their standard menu.
A blanket requirement for all sites
is that they be high in quality, whatever their wares.
Once participants are selected, it is essential to train them.
These are not professional tour conductors. They often have no
idea how to handle tourists and are not equipped to meet the
challenges that visitors present. It can be as simple as pointing
out how
to display merchandise or the guidebook itself. Each site keeps
a percentage of book sales. “It would behoove them to market
it. But they just don’t even think of it unless you tell
them,” explains Anderson, who says they just didn’t
realize or anticipate the need to train proprietors in basic
tourism hospitality. “The craftspeople are independent
people who work mostly in isolation. They need to be taught how
to market themselves.” If visitors are uncomfortable in
a site they won’t come back and bad word-of-mouth can spread
even more quickly than good.
Tying into the need to train new regional ambassadors is the
need to teach them about adding value to their destination, by
adding activities or food, demonstrating their craft, or interpreting
the meaning of the items they make. Visitors are there not just
to spend their money; they want to learn. They want to get the
whole experience, not see only a finished product. This taking
business training to the craftspeople, helping them think like
businesspeople,
is what Anderson calls HandMade’s “
incubator without walls” concept.
HandMade is training its crafts and heritage site owners to
think entrepreneurially, to forge unexpected partnerships, to
keep things interesting and attractive to visitors. At Elk Herd
Farm, where antlers are harvested for medicinal uses, the owner
has paired with a Christmas tree farm to form promotional weekends
where kids can have their pictures taken with Santa’s reindeers,
go on sleigh rides, and drink hot cider on their visit to cut
their own holiday tree. During warmer months, scattered bed-and-breakfast
inns in the countryside partner with craftspeople and market
crafts weekends called “Come Get Your Hands Dirty and Carry
it Home Under Your Arm.”
These are just a few of the 525 sites—including artists’ studios
and shops, crafts-related historic sites, inns, restaurants,
and events—along seven self-guided driving trails, ranging
from 100 to 215 miles in length, that take visitors through mountain
roads to visit public and private sites that celebrate western
North Carolina crafts heritage.
Making the Most of Opportunities
Collaborate: “Ultimately,
we wanted to build bridges of trust and friendship
to connect the rural communities of Western North Carolina. We
wanted
to design a system that encouraged the region’s smallest
towns to work together in preparing their communities for new
tourism products and enhanced visitor experiences,” explains
Anderson. It was the craftspeople and artisans themselves who
willingly and eagerly forged partnerships for mutual benefit.
Their enthusiasm for working together to
better each individual spilled over to
the formerly competitive lodging establishments in the region,
who now
use collaborative marketing to attract heritage tourists.
Find
the Fit Between the Community and Tourism: Making
the tourist attraction work within the community’s framework
is a basic building block of this successful program. “First
and foremost, we talked to the people,” says Anderson. “They
were asked to guide us in identifying the places they were
comfortable
sharing with visitors. Alternately, we asked them to think about
the places that they wanted to hold sacred and not open up to
visitors. This program has been built from the people up.” Because
many
of the artisans and farmers featured live solitary lives, it
is important to have them design the concept for their site,
making them more receptive to visitors.
Make
Sites and Programs Come Alive: Near Little Switzerland
at The Loom Room, Murtis Carver spins mohair, camel hair, and
wool and offers classes in her craft. Near Brevard, Chaffe McIlhenny
blows and sculpts sparkling glass goblets and vases. All along
the routes, explorers will discover studios where artisans work
and demonstrate their creativity and skill, and happily share
the histories of their crafts.
Focus
on Quality and Authenticity: In
its printed criteria for selecting sites to
be included in the Craft Heritage Trails, HandMade states firmly
as its first priority “The focus must be on authenticity
and quality. No businesses promoting or selling overseas imports.
We want sites that reflect positively upon our heritage.”
Preserve
and Protect Resources: The southern Appalachian Mountains
are the birthplace of traditional and contemporary crafts and
the center of
education about crafts in this country. HandMade’s Craft
Heritage Trails provide visitors with insight and understanding
of this vital part of American history, keeping alive traditions
that reach back for centuries.
Results
The Craft Heritage Trails of Western North Carolina,
first published in 1996, grew by 150 sites for its second printing
in 1998. A third edition of the guide will be released in 2002.
Response cards indicate that 94 percent of trail visitors
purchase crafts during their travel on the trails. Of those making
purchases, 42 percent spent more than $200.
Seventy-eight percent of the craft
businesses report increased sales, some as high as 30 percent.
Due to participation in HandMade in America, some craftspeople
have expanded their businesses beyond what they would have
dared. They have purchased new equipment, added space to studios
and
galleries and learned how to promote their neighbors and community.
Following the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s
Main Street methodology for downtown revitalization, 11 very
small communities in the HandMade region have tied into the
heritage tourism trails to rejuvenate
business and bolster their economies.
HandMade in America is being used as a model in developing
a statewide tourism program called North Carolina Heritage, Inc.,
and is currently working with the N.C. Department of Cultural
Resources to develop three new self-guided multi-state tours: The Heritage Music Trails, The Cherokee
Heritage Trails, and the Garden and Countryside Trails of the
Blue Ridge. These three trails, along with the Craft Heritage
Trails, will serve as the basis for the development of a National
Heritage
Area designation called the Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative.
Using your community’s history and arts to
attract visitors is sound economic strategy.
Moving tourists to and between sites via
driving tours is a tried-and-true method.
But where did this concept of tying together
the odds and ends of an area’s heritage and
marketing them as a unit come from? One of the
first programs in the nation to recognize and
tap into an inherent industry—the past and its
rituals—originated in the mountains of North Carolina.
HandMade in America, which more or
less forged the original heritage trail, is now
the grandma of all heritage driving tours. Here,
a mature heritage tourism program shares its story.
In the ancient hills and dales of western North Carolina live
people who have eked livings from the steep, rocky earth and
carried
on Native and Old World traditions for centuries. Being rural
kept the traditions—crafts, specifically—pure. No
second-rate materials, no cutting corners to meet quotas. These
are as authentic a bunch of folks as you’re likely to meet
anywhere in the country. And so are their crafts, which, while
considered art forms today, grew out of necessity in a remote
wilderness: pottery, blown glass, wood-working, weaving. 
But getting from recognizing the value of its environmentally
friendly industry that employs 740 full-time and 3,300 part-time
workers who contribute more than $122 million to the local economy
annually, to organizing and marketing it as an economic development
tool took some seriously hard work and a whole lot of flying
by the seat of the pants.
“My dad started our family business 15 years ago,” explains
Brad Dodson of Mud Dabbers Pottery and Crafts of Waynesville
and Brevard. “His philosophy is one of being open and sharing
his knowledge about his art. He welcomes visitors into the studio
and shares with them what he’s doing. This way customers
not only get to see the mug or the vase being made, they can
take part in the essence of seeing it produced by meeting the
artist and talking with him while he’s creating.” Brad,
his father, John, and his brother, their mother,
and sisters all create pottery and work in the shops. “By joining up
with the HandMade group,” continues Brad, “we were
able to market more widely than we would have on our own. Their
philosophy meshed perfectly with ours and the Heritage Trails
book is a great marketing tool.”
One of the first steps in choosing sites and partners for the
Heritage Trails publication was to develop selection criteria.
Anderson says it is very important to adhere strictly
to the criteria. Why? “Making exceptions creates confusion
and hard feelings and may compromise the focus of the publication,” explains
Anderson. HandMade has developed a laundry list of requirements
that must be met by sites that want to be included in the book.
These criteria have evolved over the course of the program in
response to issues that cropped up during the formative stages.
Collaborate: “Ultimately,
we wanted to build bridges of trust and friendship
to connect the rural communities of Western North Carolina. We
wanted
to design a system that encouraged the region’s smallest
towns to work together in preparing their communities for new
tourism products and enhanced visitor experiences,” explains
Anderson. It was the craftspeople and artisans themselves who
willingly and eagerly forged partnerships for mutual benefit.
Their enthusiasm for working together to
better each individual spilled over to
the formerly competitive lodging establishments in the region,
who now
use collaborative marketing to attract heritage tourists.
Find
the Fit Between the Community and Tourism: Making
the tourist attraction work within the community’s framework
is a basic building block of this successful program. “First
and foremost, we talked to the people,” says Anderson. “They
were asked to guide us in identifying the places they were
comfortable
sharing with visitors. Alternately, we asked them to think about
the places that they wanted to hold sacred and not open up to
visitors. This program has been built from the people up.” Because
many
of the artisans and farmers featured live solitary lives, it
is important to have them design the concept for their site,
making them more receptive to visitors.
Make
Sites and Programs Come Alive: Near Little Switzerland
at The Loom Room, Murtis Carver spins mohair, camel hair, and
wool and offers classes in her craft. Near Brevard, Chaffe McIlhenny
blows and sculpts sparkling glass goblets and vases. All along
the routes, explorers will discover studios where artisans work
and demonstrate their creativity and skill, and happily share
the histories of their crafts.
Focus
on Quality and Authenticity: In
its printed criteria for selecting sites to
be included in the Craft Heritage Trails, HandMade states firmly
as its first priority “The focus must be on authenticity
and quality. No businesses promoting or selling overseas imports.
We want sites that reflect positively upon our heritage.”
Preserve
and Protect Resources: The southern Appalachian Mountains
are the birthplace of traditional and contemporary crafts and
the center of
education about crafts in this country. HandMade’s Craft
Heritage Trails provide visitors with insight and understanding
of this vital part of American history, keeping alive traditions
that reach back for centuries.
The Craft Heritage Trails of Western North Carolina,
first published in 1996, grew by 150 sites for its second printing
in 1998. A third edition of the guide will be released in 2002.
