FOA should be behind the effort to limit cruise ships not promoting them. Stephanie Clement, VP of conservation at FOA is doing the opposite of what her title implies. I suspect her emotion was related to her internal conflict of interest.
Let's do the math. The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce claims to have served slightly more than 100,000 of the more than 3,800,000 visitors Acadia National Park reported having visited in 2023. If my calculations are correct that amounts to the BCC having provided services to a little more than 2.6% of ANP visitors. Given a proposed total town commitment of roughly $80,000 to the chamber this works out to a cost to taxpayers of around 80 cents per person assisted by the chamber. I ran a successful (although tiny) business in Bar Harbor for 25 years and if an advertising agency had approached me with an ad proposal costing me 80 cents per person contacted I probably would have laughed. As to the Bar Harbor Chamber's website although it was at one point a professionally laid out high quality website it is, in my opinion as a professional photographer, currently an embarrassment to the town. The days when such a slipshod website would have been even semi acceptable are long past. With the proliferation of websites like Trip Advisor the bar that must be met these days is very high indeed, both in terms of written and visual content. Sadly the Bar Harbor Chamber website doesn't even come close. The very existence of the Internet has largely disrupted traditional methods of attracting and serving travelers. Hotels and motels once largely dependent upon chamber of commerce websites now have far more effective and far less expensive ways of attracting customers. In short local chambers of commerce have become almost irrelevant and I suspect their days are numbered unless they come up with a new rationale for their existence. Basing their survival upon joining in lawsuits against the town they supposedly serve is probably not a recipe for success.
I wonder if this incestuous group of the Chamber, its lawsuit attack dog called APPLL, and the FOA higher ups, ever shed copious tears and wails of anguish about the beauty and fragile environment of Acadia National Park being beaten down by the hordes of visitors, many of whom travel on fossil fueled cruise ships and ride through the Park on enormous fossil fueled charter buses the pollute the air. Do they sob when they see the magnificent views from the top of Cadillac blighted by massive cruise ships that dwarf those jewels known as the Porcupine Islands and Frenchman’s Bay? Acadia National Park’s mission is to preserve our national treasures, not to be a Disneyland type theme park where the mission is the more the merrier, because corporate profits are the real mission.
Thank you , voters of BarHarbor for stopping this trough feeding by the Chamber from your property taxes!
The crying was over the top
Thank you again, Lincoln, for your outstanding coverage of this almost incredible account of unspeakable maneuvering.
FOA should be behind the effort to limit cruise ships not promoting them. Stephanie Clement, VP of conservation at FOA is doing the opposite of what her title implies. I suspect her emotion was related to her internal conflict of interest.
WOW ! Derangement syndrome supreme.
Let's do the math. The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce claims to have served slightly more than 100,000 of the more than 3,800,000 visitors Acadia National Park reported having visited in 2023. If my calculations are correct that amounts to the BCC having provided services to a little more than 2.6% of ANP visitors. Given a proposed total town commitment of roughly $80,000 to the chamber this works out to a cost to taxpayers of around 80 cents per person assisted by the chamber. I ran a successful (although tiny) business in Bar Harbor for 25 years and if an advertising agency had approached me with an ad proposal costing me 80 cents per person contacted I probably would have laughed. As to the Bar Harbor Chamber's website although it was at one point a professionally laid out high quality website it is, in my opinion as a professional photographer, currently an embarrassment to the town. The days when such a slipshod website would have been even semi acceptable are long past. With the proliferation of websites like Trip Advisor the bar that must be met these days is very high indeed, both in terms of written and visual content. Sadly the Bar Harbor Chamber website doesn't even come close. The very existence of the Internet has largely disrupted traditional methods of attracting and serving travelers. Hotels and motels once largely dependent upon chamber of commerce websites now have far more effective and far less expensive ways of attracting customers. In short local chambers of commerce have become almost irrelevant and I suspect their days are numbered unless they come up with a new rationale for their existence. Basing their survival upon joining in lawsuits against the town they supposedly serve is probably not a recipe for success.
I wonder if this incestuous group of the Chamber, its lawsuit attack dog called APPLL, and the FOA higher ups, ever shed copious tears and wails of anguish about the beauty and fragile environment of Acadia National Park being beaten down by the hordes of visitors, many of whom travel on fossil fueled cruise ships and ride through the Park on enormous fossil fueled charter buses the pollute the air. Do they sob when they see the magnificent views from the top of Cadillac blighted by massive cruise ships that dwarf those jewels known as the Porcupine Islands and Frenchman’s Bay? Acadia National Park’s mission is to preserve our national treasures, not to be a Disneyland type theme park where the mission is the more the merrier, because corporate profits are the real mission.
Thank you , voters of BarHarbor for stopping this trough feeding by the Chamber from your property taxes!
Thank you! Wow!!