By LINDA KELLETT

C-S-E News Staff

CANAJOHARIE — Connecting the dots between the Mohawk Valley Region’s diverse historic and heritage sites is a key to promoting tourism and local economic development across the region.

That was the view of one of many people who flocked to the Arkell Museum and Canajoharie Library last Thursday to take part in a meeting hosted by the Mohawk Valley Region’s workgroup for the state’s “Path Through History” initiative.

Following presentations and brainstorming sessions, Oneida County resident Tim Trent said, “The Mohawk Valley Region is tremendously rich in historic sites, stories, events... all kinds of things people might be interested in; but they’re not connected. We need to connect them in meaningful ways. We need to connect them in ways that engage the sites, so that this site will talk about that site, and that site will talk about the next site, so when the visitors come, they’ll encounter a visitor experience; and that means connecting the dots in a variety of ways.”

Among the 70-plus people present for the afternoon-long meeting were representatives of historic groups, cultural and heritage organizations, individuals and others from Fulton, Herkimer, Montgomery, Oneida, Otsego and Schoharie counties with a stake in heritage tourism efforts in the Mohawk Valley Region.

The purpose of the gathering was to provide input about a potential marketing plan and “catalyst project(s)” being developed for the region to encourage tourism, local economic development as well as to serve as an educational tool.

Local workgroup leaders including Gina DaBiere-Gibbs, the tourism director for the Fulton-Montgomery Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Helen Martin, the chairman of the Mohawk Valley Region’s workgroup, facilitated a half dozen break-out groups, which brainstormed about this region’s resources, the story they want the region “to tell,” how they want to tell it, and organizations that could support the region and heritage tourism.

Martin said the next meeting, which will be held to synthesize those suggestions into a primary catalyst project, to form sub-committees and the like, was scheduled to take place yesterday (Wednesday) at the Fort Plain Museum.

Mark Castiglione, the acting executive director of the Hudson River Valley Greenway and the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area, early in the Jan. 31 program gave an overview of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Path Through History” initiative, noting that Cuomo recognized that “our story in New York state is more significant and contributed more to our national story than any state in the nation.”

Additionally, he said Cuomo realized that when heritage tourists travel, they “spend more and they stay longer” than average tourists.

“On average, they spend $300 more per trip than the average tourists,” he said, adding that 78 percent of tourists participate in cultural and heritage activities.

“It makes sense to focus on heritage tourism, and that’s what the Path Through History is about,” Castiglione said.

Ultimately, the initiative is about collaboration across the region and the state, the development of a dynamic tourism experience that allows the tourist to move from recreational to heritage experiences, the fostering of public-private partnerships, and the leveraging of existing tourism/historic tourism efforts and knowledge — with the goal of “telling a better story to attract people here,” he said.

Ten regional workgroups, made up of tourism professionals, historians and heritage professionals, were developed across the state as part of the initiative. Themes identified by those groups were submitted to the state in August.

Of all of the themes, 12 were selected to help the regions tell their stories. “They’re a way of organizing our tremendous and diverse story,” he said. The state-wide themes include arts and culture, canals and transportation, civil rights, colonial history, innovation and commerce, Native Americans, natural history, the Revolution, sports history, U.S. presidents, War of 1812 and women’s rights.

The next task for individual workgroups is to develop a plan of action, with projects of mutual benefit for the members of that region that will fit together to become a statewide plan for heritage tourism.

Each workgroup is expected to receive about $100,000 to “kickstart” their heritage tourism efforts locally. In order to accomplish that, they’ll be creating a plan with short-term, medium-term and longer-term ideas and a project list, for which the money will be spent — “to make investments that have an impact across the region and to lay a foundation for a tourism economy and partnerships that will implement the plan moving forward,” he said.

The projects will be reviewed by the Regional Economic Development Council, with funding awarded this spring.

In order to promote the initiative, he said the regional groups are in the process of developing content, and representatives of I Love New York will develop an interactive website and mobile app.

Regional projects might make use of digital content, itinerary development, collaborative marketing, Path Through History events, and experiential programming, for example.

He said, “The folks in the region know their stories the best. I Love New York in Albany or New York City, they can have an idea what the story is, but they don’t know; and that’s why the regional Path Through History workers were created: to help them tell a better story through their website and mobile experience.

“The goal is to surround the tourist with a heritage experience like no way before,” Castiglione said. “I’ve never seen an investment in marketing history and heritage tourism at this level before. I think it’s a tremendous benefit for us all.”

In addition to the website and mobile apps, he said the state will be putting up new signage that connects historic sites with the branded Path Through History signs.

Additionally, Heritage Weekend will be rebranded as Path Through History weekends, to be observed on June 1, 2, 8 and 9. He said, “That will be our chance to highlight the diversity of the heritage experience across the state and demonstrate all the organizations that contribute to making heritage tourism a reality and interesting across the state.”

Key to the success and resilience of the effort is partnerships and collaboration among the organizations represented in the regional work groups, the economic development community and historians, and the tourism community and historians, Castiglione said.

The state has set measurable objectives in order to see how successful the overall initiative will be.