Biltmores successes may teach useful tourism lessons

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Christmas at Biltmore is under way. The Asheville, N.C., house billed as &8220;America&8217;s largest,&8221; dressed in seasonal greenery and ornaments, as of Thursday has hosted 167,000 visitors since the two-month holiday season began on Nov. 3. The estate, celebrating its 75th anniversary as a tourist site, expects more than 310,000 to come for the holiday tours and events.

One of the South&8217;s most successful tourism enterprises, Biltmore, built by George W. Vanderbilt as a private residence, was completed in 1895 after five years of construction. Not until 1930 did the house open to tourists.

The Biltmore story parallels the Natchez story, with historic house tours offered as a way to bring people and their money to economically depressed cities. &8220;Asheville was a boom town in the 1920s,&8221; said Steve Miller, with Biltmore for 28 years and one of the authors of a long-range plan to take the Biltmore &8220;from an attraction to a destination.&8221;

Key in that plan was creating a spectacular Christmas season at the mansion and its gardens and grounds, Miller said. &8220;When I first came to Biltmore, we were closed December, January and half of February,&8221; he said. &8220;And 25 years ago, only the house was open and only half of that.&8221;

Visions grew of new things to show, new seasonal events, outdoor activities and ways to take the same tours and make them somehow new.

Today visitation at the house has increased from a two-hour experience to an all-day experience.&8221;

In March 1930, Biltmore owners Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil, the builder&8217;s daughter, and her husband, John Cecil, agreed to open the house when Asheville Chamber of Commerce officials made the request.

In 1931, Natchez Garden Club members began to plan the first historic house tours in their city, a Garden Pilgrimage Week, to take place in 1932, designed to bring money as well as notice to a city with many historic houses and estates built prior to the Civil War.

Does the Biltmore model for visitation growth provide ideas for Natchez tourism?

With the Biltmore fortune behind it, the estate has an advantage, to be sure. However, Miller said, historic places such as Charleston, Savannah and Natchez, with the stories they have to tell, are destinations tourists seek today. They are ripe for continued development for today&8217;s tourists.

Developing the full year

The Biltmore plan, which increased annual visitor numbers from about 300,000 a year 25 years ago to nearly one million today, focused on the year-round market &8212; the Spring Festival of Flowers, concerts in the summer and a harvest festival, for example.

&8220;One of our most successful additions was opening the winery in 1985. It&8217;s not only a new business for us but also a major attraction,&8221; Miller said. &8220;It&8217;s the most visited winery in the country.&8221;

Opening new rooms at the house has increased visitation, as has opening restaurants. &8220;That brings repeat visitors but also gives people who wanted to come but never have been, a reason to come,&8221; he said. Another recent opening was the restored horse barn, &8220;done very specifically for families,&8221; and including the kitchen garden and displays of original farm equipment as well as a farmyard with chickens, lambs, calves and other animals in natural farm settings.

Outdoor activities include horseback riding, canoeing, hiking, fly-fishing and, one of the newest additions, the &8220;Land Rover Experience Driving School,&8221; in which participants learn techniques for off-road driving.

Miller said the success of Biltmore today is easy to trace. In the 1960s, the enterprise was losing money. William Cecil, the builder&8217;s grandson, returned to Asheville from New York City, leaving his career as a banker, and began to turn things around.

Profits went into preservation of the property. Any leftover funds went to advertising.

&8220;You have to have a champion to build what you want for the long term. Ours was William Cecil,&8221; Miller said. &8220;He committed his life to it, and that&8217;s what it takes. It takes time and money. I tell people it&8217;s about purpose, somebody committed to the purpose.&8221;

Pilgrimage took commitment

In Natchez in the 1930s, commitment was something Natchez Garden Club women understood, said Mary Louise Shields, who was among the group who founded the Natchez Pilgrimage, where many say Natchez tourism in the 20th century began.

There was little money. But there was determination. &8220;That first time we had the Pilgrimage, we thought we might have a couple of hundred. We had 750, and they stayed for three days,&8221; Shields recalled.

With too few hotel rooms available for the visitors, &8220;we took them into our homes at no charge. Everyone was so friendly and hospitable. And that has not changed in Natchez. People still want to come. And they still get the hospitality and friendliness from everyone in the community.&8221;

Still, the average traveler today is looking for new ways to enjoy historic cities and sites, said Dr. James Coy, who manages Natchez Pilgrimage Tours and has been involved in other citywide tourism efforts.

New ideas taking hold

&8220;I think we have to re-invent what we&8217;re doing, use the research and discoveries as sparks to attract people,&8221; Coy said.

Indeed, he spearheaded a committee to create a living history program presented in November using Stanton Hall, Magnolia Hall and Holy Family Catholic Church as the settings.

That program showed how different groups can come together, create a good show and to the benefit of all, Coy said.

His wife, Ruthie Coy, president of the Pilgrimage Garden Club and with whom he owns the historic house Bontura, said targeting families with children is crucial to the growth of Natchez tourism. She envisions one day a Natchez history museum and a children&8217;s museum. &8220;The visitors center is wonderful, but it&8217;s not the overall view of Natchez history that a museum would show, and we need that.&8221;

Both Coys praised the recent effort by the Natchez Community Alliance to complete plans for historic and recreational trails throughout the city and to begin to secure funds to create the trails.

&8220;I&8217;m very excited about that. It will get people walking around town, reading kiosks and going into some of the places they might not have known about,&8221; Jim Coy said. &8220;Ruthie and I have traveled a lot. Natchez has features you find nowhere else.&8221;

Walter Tipton, director of tourism for Natchez, said broadening tourist attractions already has begun.

&8220;Antebellum homes are our icon. People come here because of the homes,&8221; he said. &8220;But clearly we&8217;re making a huge thing out of the Natchez Trace, and we&8217;re developing the infrastructure to make U.S. 61 a scenic byway to attract car clubs and motorcycle groups.

&8220;That&8217;s niche marketing. And the beauty of Natchez is that it appeals to a lot of segments,&8221; he said, referring also to the success of the annual kayak race on the Mississippi River and an antiques show sponsored by the city.

Tipton would like to see a water park with a Huckleberry Finn theme and an aquarium that would showcase fish found throughout the Mississippi River system.

Money, marketing top priority

Without money, many of the good dreams about enhancing Natchez tourism are just that, dreams. Many cities that are tourist destinations expect private enterprises to invest in such things as museums, aquariums and recreation for children, Tipton said.

Connie Taunton of the Natchez Convention and Visitor Bureau, said not a day passes without inquiries from visitors about river cruises.

&8220;We also have people asking about horseback riding on the Natchez Trace,&8221; she said.

Taunton said promoting living history programs is right on track with what she hears. &8220;The tour companies tell us they are not interested in furniture. They want to know more about the people who lived in the houses.&8221;

Marketing of Natchez always has been fragmented, she said. The moving earlier this year of the Natchez Pilgrimage Tours sales offices to the visitor center is a step in the right direction.

Taunton said money for advertising has shrunk. &8220;Back in the early &8217;90s, we had access to $150,000 in matching grant funds. With our match, that gave us $300,000 for advertising. Some of the money could be used for printing, as well, pieces to use as sales tools,&8221; she said. &8220;Now that is cut to $50,000, and none of it can be used for printing.&8221;

More and more visitors turn to the Internet for information, Taunton said. &8220;And when they get on the Web, they want to buy a package. They want to know where they&8217;re staying, what they are going to do, where they&8217;re going to eat. Successful advertisers are doing that now.&8221;

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