A Community of Second Homes

As previously discussed here I attended the Comprehensive Plan Breakout Session for businesses on Tuesday, April 23, 2013.  Mr. Ralph Winters was also at that meeting and made a statement I thought was somewhat profound.  I jotted it down so that I could get it right.  “We are not so much a resort community as a community of second homes.”    That idea resonated with me…  While we do have lots of “rentals”, we do not have any hotel space to speak of.  The Cove has mostly gone private, to the point that I don’t remember the last time I saw a conference there.  This suggests a different kind of resort community.

I have been resistant to the idea that Culver should aspire to being a  resort community.  I have felt that the seasonal issue has become one of our problems and that putting all of our eggs in one basket is not a good way for the Town to move forward.  I think that Ralph’s somewhat sage assessment sheds a different light on the situation.  Where the merchants were expressing a need to cast a wider net and bring more people to Culver, Ralph’s statement made me think that what we may need to do is concentrate on ways to bring our current seasonal patrons back on a more regular basis.  This would seem like an easier task since we would be dealing with people that already know the positives of Culver but just may not realize that there are reasons to come here at times other than the summer.

In my experience, people are creatures of habit.  If we have a good experience someplace we tend to go back rather than take the chance on something new.  We also tend to pigeonhole these experiences, i.e., Culver is the place for summer fun but not necessarily the place to be the rest of the year.  I know that getting repeat business from satisfied customers is always easier than obtaining new customers in my business and I would assume that this translates across the board to all Culver businesses.  I hope to bring this up at one of the next meetings for consideration.  I hate to pump Ralph up too much but I do think that his assessment is worth further discussion with the group.