Harbor Springs Doesn’t Need More Marketing — It Needs Priorities
This post asks what are your thoughts?
If our downtown business owners and community leaders want stable streets, stable property values, reliable workers, and real community — they can turn toward the backbone in a town: the long-term homeowners, cottage owners, and generational families who care about these places as living communities.
It’s time to ask you: who are we building, repairing and designing this community for — and is there anyone you are willing to leave behind? This town is no longer a hidden gem. People know about the beauty of the bay, the walkable downtown, the marina, the charm that sets Harbor Springs apart. You don’t have to tell the world — they’re already here or planning a visit. Let’s keep it that way.
The residents foot the bill for increased tourism promotion.
As a comparison, the port city of Escanaba in the U.P. was slated to receive around 30 cruise ship stops in summer 2025, each carrying up to 200 passengers eager to experience Michigan’s north country. Did that happen? Or was that a wish ? Governor Whitmer herself linked tourism to making Michigan a place people want to “live, work, visit, and invest”.
Ask why are locals actively avoiding downtown in the summer while simultaneously being asked to subsidize marketing that draws in day tourists. It’s time for all of the residents to re-evaluate where our public money is going.
Yes — tourists spend. Yes — short‑term rentals and vacationers help keep shops, restaurants, galleries, and marinas alive during peak season. Why can’t we have more shops for the residents? Affordable and selling needful goods? A town for our residents – what are the priorities?
OUR FAN BASE? : The investment in tourism marketing clearly pays dividends. Those 789,000 additional trips influenced by Pure Michigan in the state in 2024 illustrate a strong return on marketing spend (and likely saved or created many jobs in the tourism sector).
If the only growth we pursue is in day‑tourists, we risk turning our resort town into singular summer: vibrant for a few months, never taking advantage of being a ski town in the winter. A writer’s workshop in the fall. An amazing quiet mud season in the spring with community events designed to showcase the towns’ features to our yearlong residents. For many, the cost of “getting out of town” in the spring is a pipe dream – unaffordable. A time that because of the tourist rush causes shopkeepers to work all spring to get ready for those summertime day tourists.
This post asks what are your thoughts? What’s important to you all – be specific –