In most areas working under the Gregorian calendar, summer ended on Sept. 21, but in Niagara Falls, the season was extended by an extra month and didn't officially end until Oct. 25. That's the date the Maid of the Mist put out the last boat ride to the falls until next spring.
It's only after that event that area tour companies switch their Spring/Summer tour schedule over to a Fall/Winter offering. It's only then that other local attractions officially go to fall hours. The Friday night fireworks over the falls cease and local hotels roll back their room rates in hopes of appealing to locals who might be in need of a weekend getaway.
It's also an opportune time to take a look back at the tourism season that was and discern the good from the bad and the ugly.
Let's start with the unpleasantness and work our way up, shall we?
The Ugly
No. 1 on this list has to be the lack of new development on the American side of the falls. Nothing of consequence was unveiled for tourists in 2008.
Outside of the Seneca Nation, most of the major buildings that make up the skyline of the city sat dark and vacant. The one exception, the One Niagara tourist mecca, made the news far more often for its owner's delinquent tax problems than it did for anything related to tourism.
Even undeveloped concepts weren't immune to the decades-long streak of bad luck downtown has been on. The long-rumored Experience Center took a big hit when the man who conceived it, Paul Gromosiak, quit in disgust over the lack of movement on the project.
By far the ugliest incident that happened here this year, or any year in recent memory, was the unnecessary death of 12-year-old Magdalena Lubowska.
The young girl from New York City slipped on a moss-covered rock into the lower rapids while on an improperly chaperoned field trip run by the son of the owner of the B&B where she and a dozen other kids were staying as part of an illegal summer camp.
Her death was a reminder of the power of the Niagara River, as well as an indictment of the power of greed and its ability to make people lose sight of their responsibilities when operating a business catering to tourists.
The case against the B&B owners is still pending in the courts. Here's wishing the Lubowska family swift justice for their daughter.
The Bad
The area started out the season in the hole when the popular Flight of Angels tethered balloon ride above the falls closed down. The attraction was especially favored by folks from countries like India and China who didn't have the proper visas to transit into Canada, but still wanted an aerial view of the falls.
I'm not sure how the helicopter rides departing from the Howard Johnson's on Main Street fared, but I bet they had a nice increase with the balloon option gone. Maybe for them, this one could be moved into the "Good" category.
The ever spiraling downward economy didn't help matters either. With gas prices up and expendable income down, it seemed -- especially in the Spring shoulder season -- that the number of tourists entering the city was off.
The weak U.S. dollar at that time led to many Ontario plates crossing the border for dining, shopping and overnight stays. The bad news is that the Canadian dollar has tanked as gas prices have dropped. As of this writing, one Canadian dollar is worth just 80 cents in U.S. money. That means that the Fashion Outlets and the hotels and motels of the city might see much lower numbers of visitors from the Great White North in 2009.
Speaking of Canada, one giant misstep by the Ontario Parks was with the much-hyped Niagara Fury attraction. The multimillion-dollar movie/experience was touted as the greatest thing to come down the pike since Annie Edson Taylor's barrel.
The reality left much to be desired.
One major complaint heard from numerous tourists is that in the first part of the experience -- a Pixar-type movie -- there are no seats. Tourists are instructed to sit on the carpeted floor. One would think a multimillion-dollar budget would include a few rows of theater seats.
A second complaint is about the length of the "Fury" part of the experience. The indoor re-creation of the falls lasts for all of seven minutes. As one mid-July visitor from Belgium succinctly put it, "Just when I was getting into it, it was over."
Attendance for the attraction was so bad that by August the Parks was reaching out to the tour companies -- an unprecedented event -- asking them to add the sagging Fury to their tours.
The Good
The falls received major exposure on the Big 3 networks this summer. All of the morning programs turned up and did live shows from the State Park. Even though a couple of the reports stung, like ABC's "Tale of Two Cities," the bottom line is that any press is good press.
Millions of people across the nation got to wake up and enjoy their morning cuppa Joe while watching water cascade over the rocks. That PR would take millions to buy and will assuredly lead to more folks putting Niagara Falls on their 2009 vacation calendar.
Vince DiCosimo has achieved many things in his life. In 1955, as a man barely into his 20s, he hopped on a boat in Italy and set sail for a new life in Canada. Arriving in Niagara Falls, the young laborer threw himself into his new country with a gusto unmatched in the tourism industry. Today Mr. D., as he is known to his many friends, is the patriarch of Niagara Falls, Ont.'s premier hotelier family.
Those with an eye on the skyline have seen the culmination of Mr. D.'s many years of hard work go up before their eyes this year. The 58-story expansion to the Fallsview Hilton is right on schedule and slated to open in May of 2009.
The new tower will be called The Resorts at Niagara by Hilton and will feature over 500 two-room guest suites, along with a bevy of unique dining and shopping venues.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I have a close working relationship with the DiCosimo family. That stated, I believe that my respect for the accomplishments of Mr. D., his sons Joe, Frank and Vince Jr., and his daughter, Anita, and her husband, John Carlo, would be the same even if observed from impartial distance.
Make the trip across the border and check out the new digs when they open next summer. As Mr. D. would say, "Omigod, it's going to be a helluva year!"
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 3 2008 |