Growing up at my family’s fishing lodge, I had the ability to interact with customers.  We talked about many things - gardening, fishing, business, and substantive issues of the day.  It was networking person-to-person.

Places like my family’s lodge are rare.  It was built as a retirement home by my great-grandparents.  They had so many friends that wanted to get away from the city though that they had to turn it into a business.  It is extremely rural - surrounded by national forest and on a wild and scenic river.  Time stands still there in many ways.  Neighbors help each other.  Everyone knows everything about everyone else.  Masks disappear in such an environment.  Business and friendship intermingle.  I literally grew up at the lodge and customers were my mentors, teachers, suppliers, advisers, and friends.  To this day, that remains the case.  In some instances they also became neighbors, having decided that the area was extremely special.

People go to the lodge for a variety of reasons.  Some seek to fish.  The Rogue River has a reputation for being one of the finest fly fishing streams in the world.  Others want to walk.  There are several trails with varying degrees of maintenance and people can just walk on their own in many areas.  People enjoy seeing the gardens and eating fresh produce that was picked that day.  They enjoy watching wild animals in the animals’ habitats.  It is a heritage that many in the United States experienced, but many are generations removed from such a life style.  When they walk in the door at the lodge, customers are invited to make themselves at home.  Everything that we can reasonably do to accommodate the customer, is done.  Sometimes, customers have particular food preferences.  Just as those preferences would be accommodated in a family, we try to accommodate them.

Reading the newspaper this morning, I found out that there is a name for what we have been doing for roughly 70 years.  That name is geotourism.  With geotourism, the distinctiveness of the locale is emphasized and, as described above, both the tourist and the residents benefit.  That is what happened with my family business.  Customers got to step back in time.  I grew the knowledge that I needed and customers introduced a world of possibilities.  Even today, they do so.  National Geographic provided more information about geotourism.

If you are interested in staying a vacation at my family’s business, please let me know.  I am happy to talk with you about it. 

 

Filed by Coleen Davis at 11:23 am under About Coleen Davis, Business Trends, Customers