Presented by Dick Schreiber to Williamsburg City Council March 17, 2008

I would like to share with you our view of what we have accomplished over the 2 ½ years since our organization was reconstituted as the Chamber & Tourism Alliance and what our aspirations are for the future.  We now have one thousand members, clear goals, exciting plans, sound financial processes, and the capacity to lead important initiatives to encourage business growth and promote the area as a year-round travel destination. 

First, let me address our financial performance.  The new organization was born with a budget deficit of $200,000.  By the end of the first year, through reorganization and re-alignment of programs we finished the year at break-even.  During our second year, we developed and published a more complete and transparent financial plan, beat our budget targets, achieved a positive balance for the year, and established a modest reserve for operations.  We now consider the organization capable of establishing and meeting responsible budgets. 

Our work tends to divide itself between general economic issues, or business programs, and tourism programs and issues.  Let me focus first on some general economic initiatives. 

Workforce

Early in 2006, issues related to the workforce gained our attention when an abundance of help wanted signs appeared in the off-season.  Those vacancies, combined with the major development initiatives of High Street, New Town, Riverside at Quarterpath, Marquis and others, caused us to look into the workforce situation.  We feared that an inadequate number of workers would inhibit the growth necessary to support existing business, let alone all the new initiatives.

To address the situation, we began conversations with the region's workforce experts.  We engaged members of the Workforce Investment Board from each of the counties and the City, the lead economic development staff person of each jurisdiction, the Executive Director of the Peninsula Council for Workforce Development and an assistant vice president of Thomas Nelson Workforce Development.  Together, we agreed that more specific information was needed.

We formed a steering committee composed of most of these individuals to carry out the necessary work.  That steering committee continues to this day.  Michelle DeWitt represents the City on this group.

In November 2006, we participated in funding a study to examine the significance of the problem.  The study concluded that we were already short over 4,000 workers and that, to support existing and planned businesses, our area would require an additional 50,000 workers over the next 10 years.

The steering committee identified five issues for further study: workforce housing, transportation, education and training, compensation and benefits, and, finally, communication and marketing.  The Steering Committee established sub-committees with experienced members in each area.  (You are receiving the rosters now.)  We are particularly pleased with the broad scope of membership of these groups.  They cover all three jurisdictions and include the most qualified individuals the Steering Committee could engage.  The result, we hope, will be action recommendations that will already have the support of a broad representation of the community by the time they are made public.

To foster more productive deliberations by the groups, the Alliance commissioned a Best Practices Study under the guidance of the Steering Committee.  The Taimerica Management Company, a consulting group specializing in this field, studied twelve areas from across the country, with demographics and growth conditions similar to ours.  With information on successful practices of these communities as a starting point, the groups are meeting and have been charged with reporting recommended action plans this summer.

There is nothing more important on our agenda than working with others to address workforce issues.  50,000 more workers in a decade is a prodigious undertaking, almost beyond one's imagination when considering that we only have 60,000 here now.  However, if we do not find the means to accomplish this goal, existing businesses and new initiatives will find it impossible to continue normal operations.  There just won't be enough employees.  The result would be empty shops and restaurants, and perhaps, entire shopping centers.  That, of course, would make the area less attractive economically and aesthetically and would likely result in a lower level of desirability to prospective new residents, let alone satisfaction of existing residents.  We are delighted with the number of individuals who have recognized the importance of addressing this problem and are working with us to find solutions.

Our workforce efforts build on related work we have been pursuing to promote education initiatives.  Even in advance of the establishment of the workforce sub-committees, our Government Affairs Committee had concluded that opportunities existed to work more closely with the two school systems to create career tracks in the two areas of greatest need, hospitality and construction.  As a result of our workforce studies we now have better estimates of the size of that challenge.  More specifically, we will need 6,000 construction workers and 21,000 new retail and food service workers just to accommodate the new developments that are under construction or in late planning stages.

I am pleased to inform you that significant progress has been made in both areas.  The Colonial Williamsburg Company-Hospitality Group is working with both the Williamsburg-James City and York school systems to put in place a culinary track that would be followed by others in the hospitality field.  Henderson Incorporated has indicated its interest in developing a track for the construction field and we are optimistic that progress can be made with both these initiatives that will, over time, make a significant impact. 

At the same time, Thomas Nelson Community College is reviewing curriculum opportunities that would allow students to obtain degrees by continuing their education in these fields beyond high school.  Programs like these take a long time to develop, but can make a significant contribution to our workforce over time.  Many high school students will leave the Williamsburg area for college and careers.  A large number will not.  This program is intended to provide the latter with career opportunities here, at home.

We all realize that the workforce challenge is closely related to housing opportunities for both permanent and transient workers.  We have tried to assist both the City and the hotel community in assessing the housing situation for exchange students with J-1 visas, an important source of workers to the hospitality businesses of our community.  I think it is fair to say that a satisfactory solution was reached with local legislation.  Additionally, good quality housing is now provided by one recruiting company that also makes its facilities available to any J-1 students.  They also provide transportation, thereby alleviating a safety issue of concern over the past several years.  This is a far better situation than in prior years and we are pleased to have been of some help.  We should note, however, that housing J-1 students will continue to require attention as the number grows. 

One last point regarding the workforce.  At the same time we concluded we would benefit through a stronger working relationship with the school systems, the health care community seemed to us to be another avenue of opportunity.  One way to reduce the need for more workers is to encourage a healthy workforce that is on the job rather than home ill.  With the very generous leadership and support of the Williamsburg Community Health Foundation, beginning in June we will be publishing a wellness newsletter for our 1,000 member businesses and have plans to make the publication available throughout the community.  Again, another effort that, by itself, might not seem of major significance, but when combined with the other workforce programs inches us closer to the goal.

A step working in support of business and the community: to assist our members develop understanding and skills that can help their businesses prosper, we have developed a series of partnerships: with SCORE and the SBDC of Hampton Roads to provide one on one counseling.  Both of those organizations are located in our building and together provided advice through approximately 1,000 counseling sessions over the past year.  We have also worked with the Technology and Business Center and the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary to provide seminars in a number of disciplines and skills.  We are now in our second year of this partnership and we see it continuing to grow.  Successful small businesses are extremely important to any economy.  Our goal is to help our members gain access to experience that can help them succeed.

Comprehensive Planning

Unfortunately, even if we succeed with our workforce efforts, we cannot be sanguine about our local economy.  Tourism, the engine that has driven this economy for many years, continues in that role.  The good news is that we are fortunate enough to have a vibrant industry at the core of our economy.  That may be the bad news, as well.  Specifically, because of its magnitude, should something happen to cause a serious decline in tourism, the City might be forced to reduce services or increase taxes, both very undesirable outcomes.

Support of a healthy tourism industry should continue to be a high priority.  It will remain the economic engine.  In fact, we believe it would be advisable for those in the tourism industry and members of the governing bodies to share views about the future of tourism.  We need a common understanding of future needs and desires to inform development of comprehensive plans over the next several years.  The Chamber & Tourism Alliance would be pleased to be included in such discussions.

At the same time, we think it advisable to consider, across the three jurisdictions, ways to add balance to the economy in order to ameliorate the risk of an unforeseen disaster negatively impacting tourism and resulting in difficult choices for the governing bodies.  If a coordinated direction could be defined, the opportunity to develop businesses or attract businesses from outside the area could be enhanced.  The result might be a better balanced economy.  Obviously, such a discussion would include citizen views on growth.  Achievement of balance within what is considered an acceptable growth level is what we seek.  We would be pleased to participate in this process.

As I hope you can tell from my remarks, the Chamber & Tourism Alliance, as the organization representing approximately 1,000 local businesses, considers it vital that we study and work towards an economy that fosters business success.   

Our commitment to long-term consideration of the local economy can be seen in a recent action by our Executive Committee to establish a comprehensive plan task force to help bring the views of the business community to the attention of those developing the plan in James City County.  This task force will be a pre-cursor to the more ambitious involvement in 2010 when all three jurisdictions will be reviewing their plans.  We believe that those developing the plans will benefit from broad input from the community. In that regard, and as with our workforce committees, we have attempted to ensure broad-based and experienced membership on this group.

Tourism

Let me switch gears here and talk about our other area of emphasis, activities supporting tourism.  We recognize the importance of tourism and devote the major portion of our funds to attract individuals and groups to Williamsburg.  In fact, over the last three fiscal years, the Alliance has been the largest private investor in the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee's marketing plans, with an investment of 1.6 million dollars. 

Additionally, Alliance staff members have chaired the Marketing Resource Task Force of WADMC, as well as the internet and public relations sub-committees.  We have joined with other volunteers to create and implement the annual marketing program that has created growth in overnight visitation to the Historic Triangle every year since the program began.

WADMC is a very important element in marketing this community.  Unfortunately, it is based on a funding formula that will, over time, become eroded by inflation.  It is vital now that WADMC members join together to consider this situation and develop actionable strategies that can make the fund resistant to inflation.

Since its completion in 2005, we have been attempting to take actions in support of the Nichols Study, Strategic Vision and Action Plan for the Historic Triangle Tourism Industry.  This year we have initiated two important actions: development of a regional welcome center and conduct of regional research to provide information for use by marketing professionals in developing their plans.

The Regional Welcome Center is located at the New Kent Welcome Center on Interstate 64, now named the East Coast Gateway Welcome Center.  We have leased a portion of the building from the Virginia Tourism Corporation, the first such arrangement by VTC at any state welcome center.

Display cabinetry has been designed and is scheduled to be installed within the next month.  We will highlight local attractions and provide information and maps.  Additionally, we are providing space for member attractions, restaurants and others to conduct demonstrations that will help encourage individuals and families to visit here.  With an average of 6,000 cars per day during the season, we should be introducing  this area to as many as 25,000 people a day, 175,000 a week.  We think this will be powerful advertising.

Our research project is seen as an adjunct to research the major attractions conduct. The difference is in scope; they ask their visitors questions.  They obtain detailed information about visitor families and their experiences while at that attraction.  We seek to learn where visitors come from, which attractions they visit while here, where they stay, how their behavior patterns are different depending on these factors and where they have gone and will go on vacations before and after the one to Williamsburg.  We believe there is a wealth of information to be gained and that it can be valuable to the Marketing Resource Task Force of the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee, as well as attractions, hotels and others who market to attract visitors to the Williamsburg area or who wish to attract visitors to do business with them during their vacation.

We continue to offer Prepare-Care-Share Hospitality Training and are working to identify new ways to encourage participation for businesses in the hospitality field.

Our efforts relating to marketing to groups and conferences are very important to a large segment of hotel industry, and we continue to seek new and more effective ways to approach the task.  For example, this year we have partnered with conference hotels to develop a trade show presence four times the size of previous years.  Those efforts are paying off.  After only six months of our fiscal year, we stand at almost 80% of the goal established for room night leads to the hotels.

In group sales, we are emphasizing direct selling, with members of our staff visiting tour group operators and AAA offices to develop stronger relationships than can be developed solely at trade shows.  We need relationships that will allow us immediate access to those who decide what their tour offerings will be in the next year.  As with any business, relationships are vital and require significant effort to develop.

We produce a range of publications.  You are now receiving our Vacation Planner and rack brochure.  The Planner is intended to provide comprehensive information useful to those considering a trip here.  The rack brochure is intended to provide logistical support to those who have already decided to come. We are very proud of these publications and believe they represent this area well.  Over the next several months, rack-size brochures for outdoor activities and golf will be printed.  These are first-time publications and, in addition to the Discover the Arts in Williamsburg brochure, begin to form a series of niche brochures to help those with special interests find what they need.

We are very pleased to have been a part in making the Discover the Arts in Williamsburg publication a success.  Recently, we have reached agreement with the Arts Marketing Task Force to assume responsibility for design and publication into the future.  The arts are an important part of Williamsburg's culture.  The Task Force has done a superb job of raising awareness.  We hope our increased role will foster greater awareness and involvement, among residents and visitors alike.

Conclusion

As the group that represents the business community, we believe the Chamber & Tourism Alliance plays a unique and important role in the economic health of the Historic Triangle.  Our Executive Committee and Board are committed to our being a valuable and valued partner with local government and other groups in working to foster such a healthy economy.

We are indebted to City Council for your financial support and your good counsel.  We look forward to assisting you as appropriate to improve the quality of life in Williamsburg and ensure the long-term health of our area.

Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to brief you on our activities. I would be happy to try to answer any questions you may have.