Watertown's Open: A Discussion on Summer Tourism 2026
This episode is a special Watertown's Open episode which came from a live discussion that happened at the WCA-TV studios back on April 7th, 2026. It was a panel discussion about how Watertown businesses can capitalize on the tourist influx this summer. Watertown's Open are live podcast events for small businesses, and it's a place to get local business owners together to discuss topics such as this. It's a three-way partnership from Little Local Conversations, the City of Watertown, and the Watertown Business Coalition.
Panelists:
Andrew Holden, Branch Line, Owner
Gavin Kleespies, Gore Place, Executive Director
Steve Owens, Massachusetts State Representative, Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development - Vice Chair
Erin Rathe, City of Watertown, Senior Planner for Economic Development
Korinne Robertson, Residence Inn Boston Watertown, Director of Area Sales
Links:
Watertown Cultural District Website (for local events)
Listen to previous Watertown’s Open episodes
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Thanks to podcast promotional partner the Watertown Business Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting local businesses and strengthening our community. Check them out at watertownbusinesscoalition.com.
Thanks to promotional partner Watertown News, a Watertown-focused online newspaper. Check them out at watertownmanews.com.
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.
Transcript
Matt 0:07
Hi there. Welcome to the Little Local Conversations Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Hanna. Every episode, I sit down for a conversation to discover the people, places, stories, and ideas of Watertown. This episode is a special Watertown's Open episode, and this came from a live discussion that happened at the WCA-TV studios back on April 7th. And it was a panel discussion about how Watertown businesses can capitalize on the tourist influx this summer. Watertown's Open are live podcast events for small businesses, and it's a place to get local business owners together to discuss topics such as this. It's a three-way partnership from Little Local Conversations, the City of Watertown, and the Watertown Business Coalition. And the event again was hosted over at Watertown Cable Access. Thank you for those folks who are hosting us. And if you want to see my graphic for the timeline of events or see links to things mentioned in this episode, you can listen to this over on the Little Local Conversations website, LittleLocalConversations.com, and find the episode there. All right, so let's get into the conversation. Lots of stuff to talk about. So here we go.
Matt 1:10
So welcome everybody. I know we had like a little bit of a blizzard this morning for a minute. So uh but we're here to talk about summer. So hopefully we'll warm it up a little bit with our conversation. Thank you all for being up here. I'll let you guys introduce yourself. So go ahead, Erin, introduce yourself and a little bit about what to do.
Erin 1:26
Great. Thank you, Matt. I'm Erin Rathe. I'm the Senior Planner for Economic Development for the city of Watertown. I've been in that role for coming up on two years. It's a new role in the city. It did not exist before. So I'm the first person in that role, which means I get to help define exactly what I do, and it's been a lot of fun. And tourism is one of the pieces that Watertown has not really capitalized on in the past as an economic development driver. Okay. Well, Steve's gonna say more about that, but that is something that we're trying to bring awareness of as an economic driver in the city of Watertown.
Steve 2:03
Hi, I'm Steve Owens. I'm the State Representative for the 29th Middlesex District. I'm in my third term now. The district is most of the city of Watertown and then parts of West Cambridge and North Cambridge. And part of the reason I'm here is I'm also the vice chair of the Tourism, Arts, and Cultural Development Committee on Beacon Hill. That gives me a little bit of a more of a perspective of some of the statewide things that we're doing. Not to say we're not doing things here in Watertown, but I do think that there's definitely more that we can do. And I think this year definitely gives us an opportunity and an opening to bring more people to Watertown to let them know the kinds of things that we can do, the kind of resources that we have, which I think the folks to my right will talk more about. So very happy to be here. Thanks, Matt. Always a pleasure.
Korinne 2:50
Good morning. I am Korinne Robertson. I am an Area Director of Sales and Marketing for a hotel management group called Stonebridge Companies. We are actually based out of Denver, Colorado, but we have several assets in this region. So I am responsible for four hotels, two of which are located here in Watertown. I have the Residence Inn, which I helped open from the ground up. And then our newest edition is the Hampton Inn, right in the heart of Arsenal Yards. So I oversee all the sales and marketing efforts for both of the hotels and very excited to see how we can partner more closely. We already collaborate very closely with most of the folks here in Watertown, but happy to be here today.
Gavin 3:27
I'm Gavin Kleespies. I'm the Executive Director of Gore Place. I'm relatively new to Gore Place. I've been there for about two and a half years, but I've been working in public history in Greater Boston for 25 years or so. And I am also a member of the Massachusetts 250th Commission, although I actually represent the city of Cambridge, but we won't talk about that. But I've been talking about the 250th and things related to the 250th for 12 or 13 years at this point. So I know more about it than I want to.
Andrew 3:56
Very cool. Andrew Holden, Watertown, born and raised, current resident. We have a restaurant on Arsenal Street called Branch Line that is turning 11 this year. We have opened the restaurant to try to be a community hub and restaurant for the town first and foremost. And then if we work really hard, we can occasionally draw from further away. It's been great to see Watertown evolve over the years and continuing to do so. And we want to do our part to be a part of that. And happy to be here.
Matt 4:25
Great. Well, thank you for introducing yourselves. Now we'll get into the meat of the conversation a bit. First, we're going to do is set up what we actually have going on, what we have to look forward to in this summertime. Vaguely, we can talk about things going on before and after, but there's a lot of big events happening this summer from the Mass 250 stuff, which maybe, Gavin, you can tell us a lot about since you know everything about it, right? And yeah, I have an outline up there on the screen. So you can see we have the Sheepshearing Festival coming up at Gore Place in April. We have Porchfest and Pride here in Watertown. And then there's some greater Boston area things that are going on from the World Cup FIFA to the Fourth of July stuff, which is going to be big this year. Tall Ships, Sail Boston, and then shift back to Watertown with some Arts Market and Treaty Day 250. And of course, there's lots of other stuff going on too. So that's why I want to just go down the line. And what do you have coming up that you know of that you think we should be aware of in terms of what's going on this summer in the greater Boston area and in Watertown specifically?
Erin 5:24
So I'm not going to highlight anything I think that you haven't already highlighted on the timeline, but what I am going to say, I'm going to go back to my assertion that Watertown hadn't done a lot to capitalize on tourism. And Steve can keep shaking his head next to me if that's.
Steve 5:40
You’re fine. I think you're right.
Erin 5:42
I thought that was a no.
Steve 5:43
No, it was an affirmative. Absolutely.
Erin: 5:45
Okay, all right, cool. So when I came into this position, you know, in economic development as a field, tourism is always a piece of that, right? I mean, bringing people into your city is, I mean, you're not just getting revenue from your residents, then you're getting revenue from the entire area. And so I started two years ago asking within Watertown, what are we doing to capitalize on that? And the answer was not very much. So just a few weeks ago, I launched a visitor guide for the city of Watertown. It's available online. Charlie put it in the newspaper very kindly for us. It's available on the economic development website for the city. And we've partnered with groups across the city to have the physical copies as well at the Mosesian and Gore Place and at the hotels and so forth, because we do have so much coming up on these timelines.
Erin 6:35
One of the things we haven't mentioned yet is that Watertown got a cultural district designation from the state about a year ago, close to a year ago. And that cultural district designation, it's a whole process that you have to go through with the Mass Cultural Council. And it involves a little bit of funding and so forth. But what it does primarily is catalogs all the cultural assets that a city has. So we have this wonderful, my colleague Liz Helfer, is the Public Arts and Culture Planner for the city. And she was the one who did all of the work behind that. So the cultural district has their own website. I know Matt will link to it, but the cultural district website has quickly become a hub. It's got a calendar on it that all of our cultural organizations can put their events and upcoming features. It's not just for, you know, big events. It could be a culinary festival. The Arts Market is on there. Classes, Gore Place has a lot of classes. The library puts lectures on there, the Armenian Museum, just everything that's going on across the city. We're trying to really make that a hub. And so that'll be my plug before I turn it over is make sure that you're going to the cultural district website to see that calendar because on any given week, there is stuff going on all across the city in arts, music, dance, theater, lectures, history, et cetera.
Steve 8:01
Yeah. And just to frame this a little bit, did a great job putting up some of the big events, particularly this summer. Like June, July is going to be very busy between FIFA, between July 4th. Probably talk a little bit more about that. It's going to be the 250th. It's going to be a big one. And then here, of course, right after that, we have Treaty Day. But we can't forget about the annual events that are happening. You know, that kind of runs in my thinking, like from the marathon, which is coming up, Boston Marathon, till Head of the Charles, right? There's a lot in between there. And there's a lot that we can do to bring folks to Watertown for those events. Partially because, and to Erin's point, we haven't really been doing a lot of that. But now we have, you know, we have places for people to stay where we 20 years ago we really didn't. We have places for people to go more so now than we did 20 years ago. So bringing people into Watertown while they're here for something else, I think is a really good strategy, partially because Watertown is blessed by its location.
Steve 9:01
If you're coming to the greater Boston area, this is a really good location to get into the city if you want. Or to go west. If you want to do a Massachusetts vacation and you want to go to the Springfield Basketball Hall of Fame and you want to go to see the Esplanade, you could stay in Framingham, I guess. But like Watertown is a really good location to stay in because you can have a car, drive out to Springfield, leave your car, and then take the T into Boston. So this is a really good place if you want to explore New England. Using Watertown as your base is really good. And New England's got a lot to offer this year in particular, with FIFA, I think is going to bring a lot of people in. The 250th is going to bring in more domestic travelers. Probably not a lot of people from overseas coming in for our 250th, maybe, but I think FIFA is going to bring in some. We'll see. I mean, there's some international controversy these days. So maybe, I know that Mass Office of Travel and Tourism kind of downgraded their expectations of international visitors because of that, but we're hopeful to be able to get people coming to Massachusetts this summer.
Matt 10:08
Anything that we haven't covered in terms of stuff going on or angles of what do you think of in terms of how it's going to affect your business?
Korinne 10:15
Yeah, I think from a hotel industry standpoint, we all sort of strive to make it out of Q1 alive. So we're finally in April and you hit the nail on the head. We start with Boston Marathon, which drives a lot of demand into our markets. And then after that, there's commencements that drive so much into especially the Watertown area, because we are in such an ideal proximity to all the things around us. So looking forward to Boston College, Boston University, of course, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, all of those assets bring so much potential for our hotels. So it's really how are we targeting those inbound customers? A lot of it's international based, which is great for us, you know, a little hit or miss right now with that. But making sure that we are advertising to those international customers what our hotel assets have to offer to them. And then all that Arsenal Yards provides for us, Target's a huge selling point. I mean, it's at our fingertips. People love a Target. They know a Target.
Korinne 11:10
So yeah, just making sure that we're really marketing what Watertown has to offer. And then outside of the commencements, we have, you know, Memorial Day weekend. There's a lot of tournaments and sports events taking place. FIFA hopefully will pan out for the hotels in a really promising fashion. And then the Tall Ships and all of that. And then right after that, we go back, move-in weekends. End of August drives a lot of families coming in to get their students situated at their nearby institutes. So that's always big for us. And then we have fall, which is coupled with large citywide conventions and things of that nature. So yeah, I think there's just a lot of fun stuff now that we're out of the first quarter.
Gavin 11:45
So Gore Place has a whole bunch of different events coming up, which I'll touch on in a moment. But I would just like to say that, you know, Watertown is actually in a really great location. Watertown is accessible into downtown Boston, into Kendall Square, into all sorts of places by public bus. You can stay there and you don't need to have a car. And driving in Greater Boston is a life-threatening experience. So why not let somebody else do it? And I can say, working in Gore Place, I get to and from Gore Place in every possible way you can think of. I take the bus, I drive, I ride by bike, I sometimes jog home. The proximity to, you know, Central Square, places like that, it's six miles. I mean, it's really close. It's really easy to get in and out. And then you're right into downtown. So it's very simple to get wherever you want to go.
Gavin 12:26
But in terms of things that we have coming up, we have a host of events. I mean, as Erin mentioned, we have almost weekly events that are traditional skill workshops or different classes, specialty tours, and then some of our larger events. The Sheepshearing has already been mentioned. That's the biggest event we have all year. So that's a huge event. And that's April 25th. We're going to have over 100 vendors. We usually get around 6,000 or 7,000 people in attendance. This year, for the first time, we're going to partner with Mighty Squirrel and we're going to have a beer garden at the Sheepshearing. So that's going to be a fun experience. And then we have a host of ongoing events, but some of the bigger ones coming up. On June 25th, we're going to have a puppet picnic. So we have a wonderful puppeteer who used to work for Sesame Street, who has a puppet, a cast of puppets, but the sort of headliner is named Good News Gus. And Good News Gus will be there giving a show. And he's a fabulous presenter. And so this is a free event for people. You can come and have a picnic on our lawn and watch the presentations for kids.
Gavin 13:24
And then on August 13th, we have our corn roast, which is a great event, which again is a thing that's free. You can come, you can buy corn, you can bring a picnic, have whatever you want. And then also sooner, is our famous plant sale. So if you want to buy 14 different varieties of tomatoes, you can come and pick your different selections. And our farmer, farmer Scott, who's been living on Gore Place for over 35 years, cultivates 60 or 70 different varieties of tomatoes. So you can have tomatoes that grow black and are very cool and all sorts of different kind of neat heritage breed tomatoes. And that coincides with Porchfest. So you can come and you can also hear bands performing at Gore Place and buy tomatoes and flowers and things like that. And it's the weekend of May 15th through 17th.
Matt 14:10
And do you have anything to, since you're involved with Mass 250, do you want to give any perspective? Because there's so much going on with that, right? Do you have any overarching things to look out for for the 250th?
Gavin 14:22
So I would actually say that the Mass 250th right now, there's a lot of diffuse stuff happening. So there's a lot of events in a lot of different communities, and some of those are very, very cool. So I would just go to Rev 250's website and check out what they have coming up. There's a lot of different things in different places. I don't know there's a lot of big headliner events. Massachusetts sort of gets the leading edge of the sword. So it's, you know, Concord, Lexington, Washington taking command. All that has already happened. So in many ways, 1776 is more focused on Philadelphia. So the Boston story is in its waning part.
Erin 14:59
Except for Treaty Day.
Andrew 15:02
In our world, of course, like everyone before me said, we love the marathon as sort of that put quarter one in the winter behind you moment. But business-wise, the graduations really do, like Korinne mentioned, you know, we found over the years we've evolved into sort of a multifaceted event space as well as a restaurant. Whether it's BC commencement, Harvard, BU, MIT are all finding that being able to bring a group of eight, a group of 12, a group of 15 or larger, we do events up to 150 with very little friction on the kitchen side. Those are big draws for us. I think for events like the graduation weekends or if the Celtics make the playoffs, that's a driver for, can be a driver for the city or for hotels. If we're really focused on multi-night stays, I think that's where it really trickles into the community more. And I'm probably preaching to the choir, but someone is coming to town for a Celtics playoff game, or, you know, if anyone else were to make it, having that second or third night to go explore eclectic restaurants in Watertown, local businesses, I think that's something we should focus on. And we'd of course love them to stay down Arsenal Street, but I also don't think we should lose sight of the hotel over the pike up by Newton Corner. To get there to Newton Center restaurants is further than coming to Watertown businesses. And that's a driver as well.
Matt 16:20
And when we had talked previously, I'd also mentioned, I know you also have a location in Fenway, all the concerts that are going on there this summer, too. Does that affect Watertown as well?
Andrew 16:30
Yeah, much better lineup, I think, from the folks in the music world that I know than last year, whether it's your thing or not. Noah Kahan sold out four shows in 15 seconds. Phish is here twice, Mumford and Sons. I believe the city is going to prove a 13th concert up from 12 historically. I definitely see people coming to stay for all the reasons previously mentioned.
Matt 16:53
Yeah. So there's a lot going on always, and there's extra stuff going on this year. So what I want to talk about next is some success stories that you've had with some of these ongoing events, but then also one-off events. If you can give us some examples of how you took advantage of that, people just showed up, or how did you get those people? I know you've only been in this position for a couple of years, but what have you had success in this time?
Erin 17:17
So I can't take credit for it, but the Watertown Arts Market keeps growing year over year. And again, my colleague Liz Helfer is the one who works on that with the WBC and a lot of volunteers. That's one of the things I'd love to say, actually, about the city of Watertown. We have so many residents involved. It's amazing. You know, I have lived and worked in other communities around this region, and there's just not the level of enthusiasm and involvement that I see in Watertown, genuinely. And it's not just the same six people either. It's a wide swath of our residents get involved. So the Arts Market, from what I understand, just has been growing and growing and growing year over year. This is, I believe this will be their sixth year. They went back to Arsenal Park last year because Arsenal Park was under renovation for a couple of years. And Arsenal Park reopened just in time last summer for the Arts Market to go back there. And they had over 3,000 people come through just in one day.
Erin 18:21
Part of I think building on the success, what I see Liz and the people who work with her do is they do some really great debriefing. They keep track of their metrics, like counting how many people are coming through. It's very, I mean, it's nebulous. It's not easy with an arts market to specifically know exactly how many people came through, right? But they follow up with the vendors about, you know, how much did you sell? And they are able to track that year over year, even if the vendor's not tracking it, Liz is. And so we have a sense of the revenue that's coming in from that, the people who are coming in for that. And being back at Arsenal Park allowed them to expand. They're adding in more each year. And this summer, they're actually going to do some pop-up markets in July at Merchants Row, right in Watertown Square, which is a, I think, a really cool asset. It's that alley alongside CVS, where we've got the dream mural that went in a couple of years ago. In that alley, they're going to be doing some pop-up markets on Saturdays. And some of the vendors from the arts market will be there.
Erin 19:23
And it's a great way, now that they have the numbers to show this is how many people, this is the demand for it, this is the revenue that comes in. It's much easier to justify than we want to expand this. We want to do these pop-ups. You know, the idea of pop-ups in Merchants Row came up for a long time. Like I said, I think it's an interesting space, but there was some reluctance to open it up until we knew the proof of concept, right? That people are going to come out for this. It is going to draw people, it is going to activate the space and people are really going to enjoy it. We're going to get something out of it. The people who attend, the vendors who attend, and the city will get a lot of good feeling and revenue and foot traffic and visibility, all of the things that arts and culture bring to a city.
Matt 20:11
Yeah. And Steve, what's your perspective from the state? You know, if you've seen successes in other places that could affect us here in Watertown, plus what you've seen in Watertown.
Steve 20:19
Well, sure. I mean, the Boston area and Massachusetts does big events all the time. It's not like this is a brand new thing. And probably the most similar to the World Cup is we had the Army Navy game a few years ago where we had to funnel people from Boston down to Gillette Stadium. And now we're doing like seven Army Navy games, which is a little bit more daunting. But we've had things like we had the Democratic National Convention back, what was it, 2004, maybe? Trying to get that back again, maybe in ‘28. So we do big events all, you know, frequently. I think this is probably the biggest one just because it's discrete events at a particular place over the course of the month.
Steve 20:55
But just to step back a little bit, the tourism industry is really essential to Massachusetts' economy. What it allows us to do is it brings in money from outside. So this is injections of money to the Commonwealth from elsewhere, wherever that might be, internationally, from New Hampshire people coming down to visit, whatever it may be, to the tune of somewhere around like $24 billion is the amount of money that came in, I think, in 2024. I don't think the ‘25 numbers are out yet. What did I say? $24 billion? Yeah, $24.6, I think, is the number. And just to put that in perspective, the Massachusetts budget is roughly around $60 billion. So not quite half of what we spend as a state just to keep the state going, that's what other people are spending here in Massachusetts. So it is a big deal. And these are multiplier numbers, right? So every dollar that somebody comes in supports more than a dollar. I won't say the exact multiplier, but I've heard anywhere from three to eight dollars in economic growth comes from a dollar outside.
Steve 21:55
So that's a big range, but it's definitely one of those things where If we spend a dollar to promote tourism, we get more than that one dollar back. And even smaller communities like Watertown can learn from that. So we can do a little bit of promotion. We can say, hey, come to Treaty Day. I mean, we got not just Treaty Day, but in a couple of years, we've got another big celebration. We got the Watertown 400th, right? That's a big deal. And you know, Boston has their 400 at the same time, and they'll probably be doing a party then. But I think we can hold our own if we try. So all that to say is we have done big events in the past, and I'm looking forward to bringing more people in and showing them what we can do.
Korinne 22:34
Gosh, what else can I add to this?
Matt 22:36
I mean, you gave a lot in the prep stuff, you gave a lot of good examples of, I mean, you've talked a little bit about it already, but taking advantage of those events coming in or graduations and stuff. But is there any particular one? It was a particular success story, and you could take us through how you actually took advantage of it, you know?
Korinne 22:53
I don't know if I have a particular story, but I can share something that's sort of newer for our industry, which is really exciting. So most of our job is boots on the ground. We're going into businesses, we're cold calling, we're trying to find the correct person to connect with to make a sale. Okay, that's sales. But more recently, we've come across something called geofencing. So we have a dedicated e-commerce team that's actually based out of Denver. They're not even here in the Boston market. And so part of our job is to funnel up through them special events or a targeted opportunity that we're trying to derive business from. So when we talk about geofencing, an example could be the World Cup. So right now the hotels aren't actually seeing ample demand for that special event. There's probably a host of reasons why that's the case at this moment, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks, some of our geofencing efforts will pay off. And what we're doing is trying to really hone in on the teams that are coming into Boston and doing sort of direct targeted ads to those folks through social media, through the internet, just basic Google ads and things of that nature. So we'd never had that capability. You know, I've been in the hotel industry for about 20 plus years. We hadn't had that capability up until two years ago. Now we're actually budgeting a pretty large amount of dollars towards that effort. So the World Cup will be a prime example of if that strategy is going to pay off for us or not. Are we targeting the right clientele? Are we fencing them in appropriately on our social media platforms and on the internet? So that in turn we start to see some demand at the property level.
Matt 24:22
I'm curious, how does that actually play out? So, like I know Scotland and Norway both have two games. So, like, how are you directly targeting them for hotels? What is an example of that?
Korinne 24:30
Yeah. So an example of that would be so if they're coming in for more of like a long-term stay, search engine optimization would allow us to see what they're looking for in their queries online. And then it would actually like our hotel would pop up almost like a commercial ad. They're looking for an extended stay hotel for Norway's game or whatnot. And then Residence Inn Watertown would populate. It almost triggers them to click onto that link and see, oh, wow, they actually have a discounted rate for the World Cup participants or customers that are coming in for that event. And then they'll see things that correlate directly to an extended stay client. So they're looking for kitchens. Oh, fantastic. That hotel has full kitchens. Oh, they're looking for living space because maybe they have their children with them. And so it's really just it's a targeted ad towards that type of clientele and what their niche needs would be.
Matt 25:19
What about you, Gavin, you have your Sheepshearing right now. So you're kind of in the thick of planning a big event, actually drawing the crowd itself.
Gavin 25:26
Sheepshearing has been just a growing success for years. It's our 39th year. Next year will be our 40th anniversary. So pretty exciting. And it has grown to be six, seven thousand people. I mean, that's a big event. So that's one thing that's certainly building on tradition in terms of like talking about something that's been a success. One thing I would highlight is partnerships, working together with other groups. I really loved partnering with Porchfest. It's a very different audience than the audience that is typically going to a plant sale. But it was actually really kind of neat the way that you sort of merge these people going to Porchfest and people going to the plant sale. And I think they were all having a great time together. And the first year that we did it, the last band played with children and parents dancing, and it was just really very picturesque and wonderful. So I think that's a great example of a way that a partnership can really lead to greater than the sum of its parts.
Gavin 26:16
But another thing I would point out is just that, you know, with all these big events coming, Boston is really overwhelming and crushing. And being a little bit further outside of the city could be beneficial in that it's like you can come to Gore Place and you can walk around. We have a 50 acre estate. You got space to walk around and not feel like you're crowded. You can go to Mount Auburn Cemetery, you can walk around Mount Auburn Cemetery and have sort of a moment of reflection. Like you can enjoy all the chaos of being in Gillette, but you can also come and have, you know, getting recentered and then get a meal at Arsenal Yards and not feel like you're in a zoo.
Matt 26:50
I will just give a quick add on to the Porchfest bit because I was the lead organizer for Porchfest the first two years, not this year, but that's another one that I think is untapped in the Watertown area because that drew out huge numbers too. Again, hard to count numbers of that, but thousands. And there was only one restaurant who took part in our after hours that we did last year and it was their second busiest day they ever had. You know, there's these thousands of people in the street, and then they need somewhere to go afterwards. So Porchfest is one that physical places should think about. Yeah. And Gavin and Gore has been a good partner for them. So yeah.
Andrew 27:22
Sounds great. On a much smaller scale, we've had success with things like Head of the Charles and Boston Calling Music Fest, doing literally an Instagram post tagging either that entity or someone connected to it with a map of Watertown with an arrow to how to find us. And I think someone referenced Target earlier, the amount of people I still meet around the city and I reference Watertown, and they're like, Oh yeah, I don't think I've ever been there. Then I'm like, Target? And they're like, oh yeah, I'm there all the time. So it's kind of sad, but I think to the point on how easy it is to get and the Storrow, Memorial, and Pike access, like to keep leaning in on that to just make sure everyone knows how accessible it is, is a victory. And I'm happy you mentioned Mount Auburn Cemetery too, because they just reopened the tower after closing it for the winter. And we, you need a break with the kids, and you just you drive through, you can reflect, you can climb the tower, and you can then come experience Watertown right down the street. So I think that's important to put on the map as well.
Matt 28:18
Yeah. So now let's open up to the kind of the meat here of so how do we take advantage of this summer as a coordinated effort with all the different angles we have dining, cultural activities, lodging. Just pulling that all together. What is Watertown's case? How are we going to work together? What's our pitch? All that stuff. So I know you've been thinking about this, Erin.
Erin 28:38
I think partnerships are a key to it. Just before we started today, actually, I was introducing people to each other. That's a big part of my job in economic development. When I meet somebody, you know, a business owner in Watertown to say, oh, have you talked to so-and-so because they're doing something similar. Or I think you guys could maybe work together on something. Bringing people together to capitalize on what they're both doing. I think it is a big piece of the success. I'm gonna let other people talk. I think, you keep starting with me. I'm gonna let other people.
Matt 29:12
Sorry, unfair there. Yeah.
Erin 29:15
I see Andrew keep picking up his microphone. He's like, I think Andrew has lots of things to say.
Matt 29:19
Yeah. So actually, I will say that this now that we're in this last question here, or not last, but this topic can be more collaborative. So if you have something, you can pipe in here. This one doesn't have to be down the line.
Erin 29:31
I’ll mention one other big resource. So how about that? I'll mention one other big resource that I think most Watertown businesses and institutions are not taking advantage of, is the Meet Boston website. So Meet Boston is our regional tourism council. There are 16 of them across the state. Every city in the state is assigned to one of these 16 RTCs, and Meet Boston is ours. It is technically the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau. So we are one of the 45 towns in their catchment area, which means that their website technically is promoting Watertown alongside Boston and Cambridge and Somerville. Their website is absolutely very Boston and Cambridge heavy. They have big sections of their website built out for those destinations, partly because they do have something that's called destination marketing that covers specifically those two cities.
Erin 30:25
But anyone can, and I've been trying to encourage people more, I've had lots of conversations with Meet Boston about this. Anyone can submit an event to their website and they will post that things are going on throughout the region. So our farmers market, Porchfest, our summer concerts, Treaty Day, all of these events that are happening in Watertown, we can, and Liz and I do, but I think it's important for the organizers that are not affiliated with the city to know that you have that ability to go to Meet Boston. It's just a little form on the website that says submit an event. They don't approve everything, but they are looking for things that people coming to the area might find interesting. They explicitly told us that people enjoy farmers markets or an arts market. When someone's coming to the Boston area, they want things to do beyond just, I mean, this is how visitors end up at Target, too, right? I mean, I go on vacation and I end up at a Target because we forgot things, right? You're looking for places to eat, you're looking for things to do with your kids.
Erin 31:29
The visitor guide that I mentioned earlier, I thought about it very much from the perspective of a parent. The people who are coming to the FIFA and so forth, they weren't looking at Watertown, as Korinne said. They weren't like, oh, I really want to stay in Watertown. That's where they found a room that's going to be convenient for them. So my vision for the visitor guide was as a parent, you get back to your hotel room in a city that you didn't really intend to visit, right? You didn't pick it because it's Watertown, but there's this guide in your room that says, ah, now that we're here, what is there to do? And so it mentions our splash parks. It mentions how close you are to Target, to Arsenal Yards, you know, the Arts Market, all of the things that are going on. It's very much for that kind of perspective. And that's what Meet Boston is doing as well. That's what their website is aimed at, is when someone is new to this area and unfamiliar, but looking for something to do for the weekend, what is there that's going on? So I strongly encourage, and anybody who needs assistance with that, please reach out to me. Happy to help with getting you connected to that as a resource or even to help you submit it. But that's a big resource that I think is untapped for our events and organizations.
Gavin 32:43
So I would say that one thing that we could do to capitalize on this coming summer is to sort of think outside the box a little bit. Don't let city boundaries keep you trapped. There's a lot of great resources in this area. And I think often we think about what's in Watertown, but we're not thinking about partnering with other organizations outside of Watertown. And since Gore Place is split between Waltham and Watertown, we're already working with two municipalities. But I think from a historical perspective, it would be great to think about all these resources. It's not just about visiting, you should visit the Watertown Historical Society, but you should also, you know, the Watertown Historical Society should collaborate with the Jason Russell House in Arlington or Historic Newton. I mean, just the number of like pre-revolutionary or revolutionary era historic sites that a person could visit in this region is pretty amazing. There's actually a lot of stuff for people to visit. People who come into Boston know about the Freedom Trail and they know to go to the Freedom Trail, and that's great. You should do the Freedom Trail at some point. But if you want to go further and go deeper, there's a lot of stuff in the suburban areas that you can explore.
Gavin 33:43
And it would be great if we worked on sort of cross-promoting and cross-marketing and working with our neighbors and other communities. And I think that that would be a really wonderful way to sort of expand what we're talking about. Not just 250th, but you know, the Lyman Estate, Stonehurst, there's a lot of really amazing properties that are available out here. And it would be a great way for people to come and check them out. And I think that if a person lands in Logan Airport and they're coming from Utah, they maybe have heard of the Freedom Trail. And we got to figure out a way to make sure that they realize that there's more than the Freedom Trail and that it's worth going out into the suburbs and that there's just some amazing, really amazing resources to visit. So I would recommend partnering across town lines.
Matt 34:23
Yeah. And I mean, you two both manage locations in different cities as well, being downtown and in Watertown. Is there any perspective on collaboration between your locations that you could add on there? I mean, that's been interesting to deal with as Fenway fills up coming into Watertown. Is that a pipeline?
Korinne 34:40
Yeah, so I'm in a very fortunate role where, so I oversee the two Watertown hotels, and then I have two additional hotels, one right outside Fenway Park. It's the Residence Inn. And then I have the Pennyweight Hotel, which is a very small Hilton Curio collection property that's on Portland Street in downtown Boston. So those hotels typically fill up first on compression dates, of course. And then we'll see once those hotels have sort of reached their limit, we start to see the demand come out to Watertown. We do a lot of cross-selling amongst those four hotels, even though, you know, look on a map and they seem so spread out, but they're truly not. I mean, you can get to all four of my hotels within 15, 20 minute drive time, I mean Boston traffic, of course. But yeah, I think one of the things that we could also do here is I'm thinking Branch Line, for example, maybe come up with some packaged promotions, you know, stay and dine type of deal. Of course, we offer specific discounts at the hotel, but whether it be 5% off for you to go to Branch Line, which is our top preferred restaurant in the area for any hotel clients that are asking where to go to dine while they're here. So I think coming up of ways for us to collaborate more, you know, we got awesome restaurants, we got two great hotels here in Watertown. There's tons of retail assets at Arsenal Yards that we already partner with in a lot of ways. But what are some more creative ways that we can develop partnerships that really appeal to the customers that are coming in this summer?
Matt 35:59
Do you have any thoughts?
Andrew 36:00
We would love all that. No, I think I mean, for the other restaurants we have, they're in such different neighborhoods of Boston that it's really just learning the ebbs and flows of the communities that they're in. But I do love the point. Like I passed through Logan Airport last month, and Mayor Wu is coming over the loudspeaker, promoting the lesser-known boroughs of Boston, you know, Roslindale, Hyde Park, et cetera, as she should. But how do we make sure Watertown is more accessible in some ways more diverse and eclectic and interesting, and how do we all work together to keep the focus here?
Andrew 36:32
You know, I would also flag another smaller website, bostonschefs.com, for any local restaurants. Really started as sort of a job board posting, but it's now become a food sort of event-centric site to use. We did a beer dinner at Branch Line a few weeks ago with Schilling, which is an acclaimed brewery up in New Hampshire. And just by posting on that event page, we had a lot of our local residents come to the dinner, but then we also had people who had never been to town or to the restaurant before come experience it for the first time. So easy thing to use.
Steve 37:02
Yeah, and I just want to chime in a little bit about some of the state partnerships that are available, particularly those through the Mass Cultural Council, which also funds some of the Watertown Cultural Council, as you know it and you say at the end of every podcast.
Matt 37:14
Yes, thank you. They, I get a grant for this podcast.
Steve 37:17
And those grants are, the Mass Cultural Council has a lot of different grant opportunities. Watertown folks will know Michael Bobbitt, who is no longer there, but who was at New Rep and was a Watertown resident, and we miss him greatly. But he made an effort to make sure that the Mass Cultural Council really diversified their grant programs. What that meant is the dollar amounts were smaller, but they went to more people. And they weren't necessarily performance-based, right? They didn't go to just the best whatever musician in Massachusetts was the one that got a grant and everybody else kind of didn't. Now it goes to more the entire sector because the entire sector is really very important. And you know, the best flutist in the Commonwealth gets a grant and nobody else does. Well, you know, you need a second best, and you need a third best, and you need a fourth best, and you need a jazz flutist, and a class like so spreading that out was very important and continues to be.
Steve 38:08
And one of the things that one of the grant programs that's open now, and I think closes at the end of this month, is a cultural experiences grant program. And those are $2,500 or $5,000 grants that are available just for people who have some sort of cultural program that they're trying to put together. And that could be something as, you know, as big as a Sheepshearing Festival or as small as, oh, we have Treaty Day. I want to put up, you know, a diorama of the Pequossette things on the side, right, so that people know the natives that were here. So they could be really anything. They have really tried to slim down how they do their grant proposals so that folks who don't have a big grant writing team have access to these and they run, you know, small dollars comparatively. But you know, $5,000 for a small event, that can be a make or break kind of thing. So I encourage folks who are interested in doing some kind of cultural events over the course of the next fiscal year to look at the MCC webpage, see if there's any grant programs that might fit. A lot of artists in Watertown and West Cambridge take advantage of this. You know, the Mosesian Center gets a couple different kinds of grants every year or so. Yeah, there's plenty of other folks that take advantage of this, and those are available to anybody who considers themselves some kind of artist.
Matt 39:23
Yeah. So how about any other resources we haven't touched on? Because talk about the cultural district website and the calendar, Meet Boston, all these, kind of that niche restaurant one. And so do you guys use a lot of social media to find people? Are you going through more niche websites? Where are the places that you're getting your message out to? I'll direct towards you three since you are the physical locations, right?
Gavin 39:46
I actually didn't have anything about how I was getting my message out, but I was gonna point out a resource that we haven't touched on. We are planning for the first time to host a beer garden all summer long into the fall at Gore Place. So this is a chance to have a place where you can go and you can sit outside in this really beautiful setting, you know, with a view of the mansion. It's entirely in Watertown, and it should be great. And we're hosting this basically from May into October. So that's a chance to have a little bit of space outside. We're partnering with Mighty Squirrel. So there will be food and there'll be all sorts of stuff, and it'll just be a cool place you can come and hang out. And it's meant to be very family friendly and very oriented around just like bringing people together in a really beautiful space where they can sit and relax and hang out in a different way.
Erin 40:28
I'm gonna mention myself as a resource. The economic development office doesn't have a huge reach, but we are ready to promote anything that you have going on. If I know about it, it goes in my newsletter, it goes in our social media, I tag everybody under the sun. Even though we don't have a huge reach, when I tag, when I tag Branch Line, boom, views go through the roof. Because again, back to partnerships. When you partner with people who have a larger following and you bring them in, then you're exposing whatever it is that you've posted to their audience as well. So I think that's a, even though we don't have a huge reach yet, I'm absolutely happy to help promote anything that anybody has going on. So, like I said, if we know, I mean, we're standing ready. We're aware of these beer gardens at Gore Place, and we're standing ready to start promoting that as soon as it's official. So please use the economic development office as a resource for that too.
Korinne 41:27
And I can touch on this. I come from a world where if you don't ask, you don't receive. So I needed a new contact for the art center. So we had the chance to meet pretty recently. And, you know, a week later you put me in touch with the new contact. So I think it's one of those where you just got to raise your hand and ask for help instead of trying to crack the code. And I think that's been huge, you know, establishing a little bit of a relationship. People want to help each other. It's kind of human nature. So I think that's just really important to have, you know, go to Erin and ask, hey, I need a new contact at whatever establishment it is that you're trying to work with.
Andrew 41:56
I think sometimes in restaurants you're just so head down every day trying to focus on the task at hand that we do forget to kind of look further ahead to the horizon. Something we definitely need to be better at. You know, in the market out here, we are word of mouth first and foremost ahead of everything. But, you know, Instagram and email marketing behind that. I will say in our world, we've found that the email marketing is a little bit more effective than Instagram the further away you move from the city. And if anyone's receiving too many emails from us, I apologize.
Erin 42:25
I would just say, first of all, there's no such thing as too many emails from Branch Line. But Watertown, one of the things I've really been trying to highlight, one of the first metrics that I discovered when I started this job was, and I love to quote this all the time, we have more than 90 restaurants in four square miles. And if you're following the economic development Instagram page, we promoted that all last month because it's a huge diversity of flavors and cuisines and from different cultures. I mean, we really have the whole world represented in Watertown when it comes to dining. And I think that is a huge, huge strength that we have. Not that the, I mean, the culinary scene around this entire region is wonderful, but to have as much as we do right within our four square mile border is just amazing. You could go to a different restaurant every week for two years and not have left Watertown, right? Almost.
Andrew 43:24
I do think it's a real shift. You know, a lot has been written about the challenges with the liquor licenses in downtown Boston. And there's the cost, there's how long it takes to get them, even if you could come up with them, the money to get them. And while that's slowly trying to be improved upon, over the last 15 years, you've seen Cambridge and Somerville take advantage of the situation downtown and become the sort of mecca for independent entrepreneur, food, beverage centric operators. But now those markets are running out of space and maybe becoming a little, you know, not quite oversaturated, but there's a lot going on. And Watertown really should, I think, be the next cusp of great dining. And you could see the front page of the Globe Food section a few weeks ago was highlighting all the great Persian and Armenian and Lebanese restaurants out here. You know, whether you're going to a great bar restaurant like a Donohue’s or a Connolly's, or you're going to Ravello for great Italian, having this sort of be on the map for the next forefront of great dining in Boston is, I think, a natural shift.
Matt 44:27
Yeah. So then there's that whole angle too of again, what is our pitch as Watertown? What's come up a lot is, you know, the convenience of Watertown. So that's a sell to someone coming from outside. What are, are there any other themes that or niches that we're missing as we kind of gather everyone together as a pitch to people coming for World Cup or these people who are unfamiliar with the area? Is there a better two-sentence thing that we can come up with or draw some different people in? Any thoughts on that?
Steve 44:54
So I, for the World Cup in particular, I think the draw is, you know, the draw's not here. It's, you know, what, 40 miles south in Gillette, right, is where people are going to go. So, and you touched on this a little bit on the hotel occupancies for that event. But to the extent that folks are here, you know, they're not going to be going to every single game potentially. They're not going to be going down every day, right? They're going to be here at some point. And what we want, I think, is to make sure that to Erin's point earlier, that while they're here, they have other things that they can do where they don't have to go very far. And if that means that they can go to one of the restaurants that's within walking or Uber distance, how can we make sure that they know Watertown has got these great places to go to? You don't have to go down to, you know, nothing against Beacon Hill or Seaport or wherever, but you don't have to go that far if you're staying here already. And I think that's probably our niche right now, but would love to hear from you guys.
Korinne 45:51
Yeah, I see it as sort of from two different angles. I see it as the homebody angle, which is the traveler that wants to come to Watertown and stay in Watertown and know that there's ample events and assets at their fingertips that they can enjoy. And then there's the person that is the adventurer and wants to know that Watertown is really the gateway to Cambridge, Boston. You're getting so much here in Watertown. You're in such great proximity. I think the idea of staying in Boston can be daunting. The rates are higher. Our hotels are typically a little bit cheaper, but I think really marketing to them that yes, we are the gateway to those two entities. Cambridge and Boston are right at your fingertips. Watertown is the place to be, and you'll get all that and more just by staying here.
Matt 46:32
Do you have a thought? Yeah, I'm not forcing you.
Gavin 46:36
I mean, I think that Watertown is really vibrant and really energetic and really embracing hosting cultural stuff right now. And I grew up in the area and I live in Cambridge. And to some degree, Cambridge is just like it's full. There's not that much more that you can bring in there. And it's competitive. If you're not Harvard or MIT, you're not on the map. Watertown, I think, is very welcoming and very willing to try new things. Just, you know, I've worked in Gore Place for two years, so not that long, but I've been really impressed by how much the city is really planning for and thinking about the cultural landscape and making it a welcoming place to be a cultural institution or an artist. And frankly, a lot of artists and artistic institutions can't afford to be in Somerville or can't afford to be in downtown Boston. And I think that Watertown is capitalizing on that. And I think Watertown is really one of the most avant-garde in that area of the communities around. I think it's soon to be a major center. It already is a major center for artists.
Matt 47:38
Maybe a last topic before I open up to some Q and A would be, so we talked about partnerships a few times too. How do you go about making those partnerships? You talked about like reaching out to someone bigger than you, but you also have to make sure that it's worth it for them. Like what are the thoughts about setting up a partnership with someone and what are the incentives and the timing of that and all that? Erin, do you want me to start with someone else? I was gonna ask if you wanted me to start with someone else, but go ahead.
Erin 48:03
No, this I'm ready to jump on this one because here's where I'm gonna plug Treaty Day. So you may have heard of Treaty Day in Watertown over the years, but let's say you ain't seen nothing yet, compared to what we're doing this summer. And I keep looking at Marilynne because the Historical Society has been a huge, huge partner. I mean, they're the ones who have been promoting Treaty Day and making it happen for 30 years. The key to this year's Treaty Day is the partnerships. So, very briefly, in case you don't know about the Treaty of Watertown, it’s the first treaty the United States signed after the Declaration of Independence. It was two weeks later, they signed the Treaty of Watertown with the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet tribes. Those tribes had come down from where they lived primarily in sort of the Maine area, maritime provinces of Canada, Maine, along there. They came to Watertown and they presented themselves to the governor's council and said, we would rather fight on your side than for the British. The British had already approached them. So they said, we would rather fight with you. So they signed the treaty and it's still binding. This is what I've learned over the course of the year or so that I've been learning about this and being involved in this. Those tribes still use this treaty and others to ensure their rights, particularly in Canada.
Erin 49:27
So what we have done for this year's 250th celebration is most of it is taking place at the Mosesian Center. Obviously, the Historical Society is deeply involved in this. We have contacts with both the Maliseet and the Mi'kmaq nations out of Canada and Maine. We have tribal representatives who are on our steering committee. We're working with Branch Line on some of the catering. We are working with the Commander's Mansion in the city for pieces of it. We have contacts, people who are going to other indigenous people who are coming in to do craft making, wampum, dance, song, performances. Cable Access TV last summer recorded interviews with some of the tribal leaders who had come down for last year's Treaty Day and they're producing a short documentary film with their experiences of the treaty that will be shown as part of this event. We have an artillery salute because the provincial guard in Watertown is involved. We have just, I'm sure I'm leaving people out and I don't mean to.
Erin 50:28
But the key to the partnerships, I think, like Korinne said, is you just ask. People want to be involved, right? You talked about incentives, we haven't had to incentivize anyone to participate in this. It's more about recognizing that they are a piece of it already, right? I mean, then this event, obviously, this treaty has parties to it who are naturally involved. So maybe that's not the best example of trying to bring people in. These people are already parties to the treaty. So of course they are participating with it. But we are trying to capitalize on all of the organizations we have across Watertown, the connections that we have to other communities, the history of it, but the fun of it as well, right? We want it to be a family-friendly event all day long, which it will be at the Mosesian on July 18th. Please come. Going to be a lot of fun. I think that as far as partnerships go, just asking is absolutely the best way. You know, we've had a very big tent approach to this. Our steering committee is about 12 or so people. We have been meeting for several months. We're now meeting at least monthly to make sure that this event comes together. There are four staff people from the city involved. I think it's just a matter of making sure you open the circle and bring as many people in as you can.
Matt 51:53
Yeah. Any other thoughts on?
Korinne 51:55
I mean it's all free marketing, right? Why would you not want to partner with such a cool event?
Matt 52:00
Yeah. Awesome. Well, I want to make sure I leave some time for some questions from the audience here. Was there anything that you guys wanted definitely make sure you got in before you open up?
Andrew 52:09
That doesn't relate to tourism this summer, but I don't think we should lose sight of how great the bike path is and whether that expands over time or not. But just, you know, I ran into someone who lives in Arlington the other day and they said, I just realized I can bike from Arlington around to Watertown the whole way. And you know, that goes right by Arsenal Yards and our way and through Steve's West Cambridge district. So I think continuing to highlight that for visibility for the local area, local community is important.
Steve 52:34
Yeah, and just on the bike path, since you brought it up, the city of Cambridge is working on expanding that so you would be able to, on a shared use path, get basically from the river all the way to the Minuteman bike path without hitting the road. The big stumbling block for that is the commuter rail line, right? If you've ever tried to ride your bike over the bridge on Alewife Brook Parkway, don't recommend. At least I've had some trouble myself. But they are building a crossing, a bike ped crossing near where the Fresh Pond Mall and the Apple Theater is, around there, where the movie theater is. So you will be able to get basically from the Watertown bike path up the Watertown Cambridge Greenway, over the tracks to the Minuteman near Alewife and then just you know straight on till Bedford, right. So I'm glad you brought that up because that's one of my real exciting things that's going on.
Matt 53:27
Awesome. Well then I'll open up to some questions. I already got, all right, Bob. Chomping at the bit.
Speaker 53:35
No, this is great. Thanks, Matt, as always, and great panel. Appreciate you being here. I think anyone from Target was gonna be happy with the content. And anyway, no, this was great. My question is, and I think Erin's heard this before, but I would love to see at some point the city of Watertown get behind a real strategic marketing plan. I think we have so many great assets. I don't know how that works. I don't know where the funding comes from. I don't know if it's, you know, increasing Erin's budget. I don't know how it gets off the ground, but I'd love to hear thoughts from people on whether or not they think that is a viable tool for them, which I think it really would be, because again, this right here could have been a, you know, you could cut this up five different ways and make three different 60-second ads here. So just my question to the panel on your thoughts on that.
Erin 54:20
Yes.
Steve 54:22
Is it yes to your budget?
Erin 54:24
To all of it. No, I'm ready. The visitor's guide was like a dry run. I'm ready to do that. And I totally agree. That's our next step. The visitor guide was for both residents of Watertown and dipping a toe in the water of welcoming people in. But I completely agree. And it's something that I've talked with colleagues around the region about how do we market the region both on the business side. We're still, we're attracting business to Watertown. We want companies to come locate here, but also all of these amazing resources we've been talking about.
Steve 54:57
Yeah, and just on the tourism side again, like Erin was very polite about Meet Boston and the website and its relationship with Watertown and other suburbs that aren't Boston Cambridge. But we should, as a community, be asking more of them, honestly. The last time I looked at their website, there were many pictures of things that no longer exist in Watertown that they were promoting. I don't know if that has changed since, but it's.
Erin 55:22
At one point they were, within the Watertown section of their website, they had references to Walpole. So it was clear that the copy had just been like pasted over. I haven't looked since we brought that to their attention. They did say they would change that.
Steve 55:35
Okay, but again, relying on these folks that are ostensibly supposed to be helping us and just making sure that they are fulfilling their obligations, I think is something that we should at least start to look at.
Gavin 55:46
I would also just say that I think it's worth thinking regionally. I mean, this area has a lot of resources. Watertown is four square miles. If you thought about Watertown, Arlington, Waltham, Newton, I mean, all of a sudden you have a real density of resources, certainly from a cultural perspective. I think you could really market this as a cultural destination in a way. But I think thinking a little bit more regionally would allow you to have a much broader reach. So that's my two cents.
Matt 56:13
And there is the Watertown Cultural District now, which does have their marketing arm that's just getting started out too, but that is already someone that should be focusing on this marketing and such.
Steve 56:23
Yeah, not to bring it back to Framingham, but like they have this, they have no, they're like the capital of Metro West, right? And they have this designation of like here's a bunch of communities that are working together, whether it's, you know, Framingham and Natick and the area around there, they have kind of a. We don't really have that with Waltham or with Belmont or with Arlington. We don't really have a like inner ring suburb coalition that has a catchy marketing name. But maybe to your point, there should be more of that.
Erin 56:50
You know what we do have though is Erika Jerram, who is our Director of Community Design, under whom I report. And she is the person who developed the Choose Framingham website and campaign when she was with the city of Framingham. So we have, we definitely, we have the depth of experience to do it. Thank you, Bob, for putting in a plug for our budget because that's probably the biggest piece of it, right? We need the dollars to be able to do it.
Speaker 2 57:17
So I just wanted to know how the tourism budget compared to the education and medical, not budget, I'm sorry, the dollars that come in for our universities and our hospitals versus the tourist dollars. And then I'm on the 400th planning committee, and I wanted to know what the panel had for plans or ideas for that.
Steve 57:39
So you're talking about the state budget or are you?
Speaker 2 57:42
Talking about dollars that come in as a result of the.
Steve 57:44
Oh, yeah, yeah. So I don't have all that, you know, at my fingertips, but if you count tourism and arts as a percentage of our state GDP, it is higher than you'd think. I think it's third highest, maybe after meds and eds. I don't know exactly off the top of my head, but it's important. Governor Healey's in her budget, her proposed budget for FY27, she's up that spending 5% because she knows. I mean, this is and this is a year where we're not upping a lot of things 5%, but she upped it because we know that we have all these things that we have to take advantage of. And, you know, you put another dollar into helping get people here, making their experience better when they're here, then they're more likely to come back. Also, we didn't, we talked about luring people here, but we'd love to lure them here and then lure them back. And they're not gonna come back if they're, you know, they've spent the entire World Cup stuck in their car because they can't get down the 93 to get to Gillette, right? They miss half the game. Probably not gonna have a good experience. So making sure they have a good experience is also something that we are gonna want to do, and that's some of these tourism dollars.
Erin 58:45
My recollection is first of all, Steve's absolutely right. I believe it is the third industry in the state, but my recollection is it's about eight or nine percent of the GDP.
Matt 58:56
Didn't anyone want to address the 400th question?
Erin 58:59
I mean, I'm part of the planning of that as well, and I was glad to see Rita here. We're, what I can say, it is four years away. We've had one get to know you meeting with our committee that's going to be planning it. I can say from the city side, we're trying to take a lot of the lessons that we learned from this big Treaty Day celebration this summer to apply that to the 400th. Watertown 400th is not a day, it's a year. The vision for it is we will be celebrating for the entire year of 2030 the fact that Watertown has been here for 400 years. So it won't be just one event. It will be a whole series of events that the committee will help us come up with. But I think the biggest plug I can make right now is talk to a committee member or talk to a staff member about what would you like to see be part of that 400th year.
Speaker 3 59:52
I'm Brian Burke. I'm with Mighty Squirrel Brewing here in Watertown. We're Waltham based, but we came to the city just about a year ago here. When I first saw this topic today, one of the first things that came to mind is the influx of potential visitors to your hotels. And like, how do we tap into that? You talked a little bit about some of that. A lot of it's technical now, right? Social media and geofencing you mentioned. But what about old school methods? Like does the brochure rack still exist? Is that still effective? You know, when I know when I go to a hotel or I go to a new city as sort of a beer geek, first thing I do is, all right, where's the local breweries? Or is there a great restaurant with a great beer list? Does that exist? And how do you tap into that now?
Korinne 1:00:28
Yeah, I think the visitor guide, the packet, I mean, big opportunity. We give that out at check-in. It's now part of our spiel when somebody's arriving to the hotel. People love something in their hands, you know, and a lot of people are trying to get away from screen time. So they're putting the phone down and they are more apt to open that catalog or look at that fact sheet. And we have a lot of opportunity to put things in rooms. So if we wanted to partner together, we can talk after this, kind of offline. But I think that'd be a great opportunity. The mix that we have at both our Hampton and our Residence Inn, you know, they love to go out and get a beer.
Erin 1:00:57
I want to add just one word of caution. This was one thing that I told Matt I wanted to be sure I brought up as part of this panel, particularly as it relates to the World Cup. I'm learning that as a business, you absolutely want to capitalize on that. There will be people here. You also have to be careful of not running afoul of FIFA because they're very litigious. And if you say, come watch World Cup matches at my brewery, restaurant, venue, whatever, if you haven't gotten licensing to do that, you can get in trouble. So I've seen creative, you know, come watch the big game, or we will have all the soccer matches, things like that. I don't want to dwell on that, but just know that that's something I'm keeping track of. And again, use me as a resource. I want to be able to help businesses navigate that so that they can attract people for watching things and all of the visitors who will be coming in without running afoul. And when I say litigious, one of my counterparts in another city said that he was on the London Olympics committee for the city of London. I mean, he was working for the city of London at the time, and the city of London was being threatened for how they were marketing the Olympics. So we're talking about these giant international corporations that run these kinds of events, are not shy about cracking down and saying you can't use the marketing unless you've paid for the license. So just wanted to mention that. Please talk to me. I'm happy to help you navigate that.
Speaker 3 1:02:30
Hey everybody, my name is Drew Rollert. You might know me. I founded a company called Wada Hoppah. I've been working for the last two years on bringing a ferry to the Charles River, an electric ferry to the Charles River. So I just want to let you know we're going to be up and running this spring, and we'll be taking people from TD Bank North all the way up to Watertown Square for the first time ever. It'll be a daily commuter service. So we'll be able to take people downtown for Sox games, for directly to Sail Boston by water, directly to South Station by water. No roads, no traffic, no crowded T cars, all the rest of this. So if you need a partner in getting people either to Watertown or from Watertown to Boston, it's going to be a very cool experience. It could be a game changer for the area.
Speaker 4 1:03:13
Hi, Charlie Breitrose. This is more like maybe an untapped resource. People know about the marathon, and I think Watertown has a great, like a lot of people run through town, like along the Charles and the path now. But in the wintertime, it's actually Boston's a center for indoor track. And you might know this at the hotel, but I mean, New Balance has that new track that has like huge meets. BU always has a bunch of meets, sort of January, February, March, and I go to some of them, but you see like tons of parents, the athletes want to eat, they eat tons after their meets and all that. And I'm just wondering if there's like a way to like tap into that. And then they'll probably be coming back because they move on to pros and like come to the marathon themselves.
Erin 1:03:47
So that's awesome. Thank you for mentioning that, Charlie. I have learned that cyclists are a huge, untapped potential market. One of my colleagues bikes every day from Somerville to City Hall for her job. And she loves to tell us that cyclists, A, always need a bathroom somewhere along the way. If you are willing to provide a bathroom that they can come and stop in, they'll probably buy a cup of coffee or a muffin or something like that while they're doing that. So again, mentioning the greenway, that is a major corridor for us, and cyclists spend money. There have been studies that people who arrive to a business on foot or by bike actually they spend less per visit, but they visit more frequently. So they're actually 25% better customers on average, revenue-wise, than someone who arrives by car. So this is one of the things that as the city's investing in more bike infrastructure and our paths and things like that, it is a good driver for the businesses that make themselves available to that population.
Korinne 1:04:53
Yeah, and I can speak to the track component. So we partner very closely with the folks over at the track at New Balance, as well as Warrior Ice Arena. So we're actually both of our hotels are featured on their website. They have a reel that constantly runs throughout the day. It has four or five hotels. And all we needed to provide to them was a booking link, which is very easy for us to do. So we see a lot of traction through their sites. And then every March they have the NCAA indoor track and field nationals. So both hotels fill up pretty far out. We're actually already in conversations with a lot of the teams that are coming back year after year. But they put their athletes and then they have some VIPs and spectators that need accommodations. So happy to help anyone that's looking to get into contact with someone at New Balance or at Warrior or even Roadrunner, the concert venue. We work hand in hand with them quite frequently at the hotels. So happy to help out with a connection.
Matt 1:05:40
Partnerships, partnerships, partnerships. Great. Well, I guess we'll just wrap it up here. Then we've been talking for a while. Lots of good information here. If you want to reach out to anybody or anyone who's listening later, I'll have their information in the show notes. Thank you, each of you, for being here. Thank you in the audience for coming out. And thank you for Cable Access for hosting us today. And yeah, thank you. Thank you everyone for being part of this. Take care.
Matt 1:06:06
So that's it for the conversation. Hope you got some interesting insights out of this, either as a business owner yourself or just someone in Watertown curious about how these topics are thought about. Again, you can head on over to LittleLocalConversations.com to see links to things that were mentioned. And you can check out all the other episodes in the Watertown's Open Series, but also just other ones that I do for the podcast. A whole bunch of things exploring the city. If you have any interest in the local arts and culture scene, come out, the Creative Chats Conference I'm doing on Thursday, June 4th. It's going to be an interactive day of panel discussion, so you'll be able to give your thoughts and opinions on things and hear what other local arts and culture leaders are thinking about. It's on Thursday, June 4th. It's going to be at the Mosesian Center for the Arts from 12 to 4 p.m. Again, information for that is at LittleLocalConversations.com.
Matt 1:06:54
All right, and I want to give a few shout outs here to wrap things up. I want to give a thank you to the Watertown Cultural Council who have given me a grant this year to help support the podcast. So I want to give them the appropriate credit, which is, this program is supported in part by a grant from the Watertown Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Find out more about them at WatertownCulturalCouncil.org and MassCulturalCouncil.org. And a couple more shout outs to promotional partners. First, the Watertown Business Coalition. Their motto is Community is Our Business. Find out more about them and their upcoming events at WatertownBusinessCoalition.com. And lastly, Watertown News, which is a Watertown focused online newspaper. It's a great place to keep up to date with everything going on in the city. Check that out at WatertownMANews.com. So that's it. Until next time, take care.
