George, I don't think you do agree with me. Let me restate one of the key phrases from my last posting: "
There are ever-increasing numbers of folks looking for just this sort of place, and they're not just railfans. This is an important point to make.
Repeatedly in these conversations I hear "the RR can't survive with just Railfans". Yep, true enough. The problem is that from this truism usually comes two erroneous conclusions. The first is that Railfans aren't important to the RR. Nope, they are. In fact, they're critical. But that's a conversation for another time. The second conclusion, more pertinent to this discussion, is that the RR must thus market to "the average tourist". It's this over-simplified (and downright wrong) conclusion which leads people to the hand wringing about all of the things that Chama and Antonito don't have.
What people are doing is a de facto (and very poor) market segmentation - dividing the world into Railfans and the "general public", and since everybody agrees the Railfan can't support the RR, the conclusion is that you've got to appeal to "everyman". The problem is that from a marketing perspective, the "general public", or the "average tourist" isn't a particularly useful segmentation. In fact, the "average tourist" simply doesn't exist. The world's a lot more complicated than that, and a good marketeer d*mned well better have a better handle on it. Your mythical "Guy in Hoboken" who wants his family to be safe is probably going to take them to Disney World anyway, and that's that. Even Durango'd be a stretch for your guy.
But the fact that the C&TS doesn't appeal to "the masses" doesn't really matter. The area couldn't handle the masses if they came in the first place and, more importantly, the kinds of numbers the C&TS needs to survive are not mass-market kinds of numbers. There really are sufficient numbers of folks who would come to the C&TS and appreciate the area
for what it is, rather than grouse about what it isn't, and they're
not just railfans.
The challenge for marketing folks is figuring out how to identify and reach those people. This is at the core of what good marketing people do. But, to recapitulate my last posting - challenging though that task may be, it's a lot easier than trying to make both the RR and the area into something they can never be, and frankly shouldn't be.
You market your strengths to your target market and don't worry too much about the guy in Hoboken.
Really folks. This RR and this area has strengths that others can only dream about, and sufficient numbers who can and will appreciate those strengths - and once again just so I'm clear as this always seems to get lost - I'm not talking about Railfans.
Scott
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2007 07:33AM by Scott Turner.
