Bar Harbor Council Set To Explore Sustainable Tourism While Park and Town Continue to Tackle Storm Damage
BAR HARBOR—Back in September, the Bar Harbor Town Council spoke about creating a sustainable tourism plan to try to deal with things like summertime congestion.
“We need to be ready to jump in and figure out an overall holistic sustainable tourism plan,” council member Matt Hochman had said. “I think a management committee is the only way we can do that.”
At their meeting on February 6, Bar Harbor town councilors spoke about the desire to move forward on their overall council goals, adopted in December. The first they’d like to tackle is alternative revenue sources. The second is the one mentioned in September: sustainable tourism.
What the term “sustainable tourism” means to the town and how to plan toward it has not yet been determined.
The discussion gained momentum in September after the Town Council disbanded the town’s Cruise Ship Committee. It now comes at a time after a duo of storms in January caused considerable damage to some of the coastal areas of the town including the Shore Path, Ells’ Pier at the end of Main and West Street, and parts of Acadia National Park.
The Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce would like to be part of that discussion.
“Last year, we stated our support for the Bar Harbor Town Council to form a Sustainable Tourism Committee. Over the past few years, as visitation increased in many places across the country, several towns that are gateways to national parks and popular destinations began to put in Sustainable Tourism Management Plans. Sustainable tourism means several different things to several different people. Some of the best plans were built with those different approaches sitting at the table to develop the plan,” said Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce Director Everal Eaton.
Hochman had stressed in the September meeting that the councilors shouldn’t let a tourism management committee fall off the radar.
In September, Brechlin expressed that he was also in favor of a larger tourism committee. “I don’t think cruise ships is the great Satan in overcrowding or in too much activity in Bar Harbor or taking too much resources” he’d said, but they were a part of the bigger picture that the town has to look at all at the same time.
PARK’S ROLE AND DAMAGE
At a meeting of the Acadia National Park Advisory Commission on Monday, Superintendent Kevin Schneider told commissioners, “Acadia National Park got hit hard during these couple of storms. We are in the process of assessing damage to the park.” The Park is bringing on civil engineers and structural engineers, he said.
“The damage is extensive. It is widespread,” Schneider stressed.
Ocean Drive was “wiped out” for 1,000 feet. Sections of park roads were undermined. The Blue Duck at Isleford, and the Bear Island Boat House sustained damage as did the water tower at Schoodic, which has a cracked support beam. Multiple roofs have damage. Schneider said that Rockefeller Hall roof is leaking so badly that the ceiling has started caving in to the interior part of the building.
The Seawall picnic area had cobbles all the way up to the gate that closes the area in the winter and substantial tree damage. Crews from other parks are helping, Schneider said.
There is no projection of how long Seawall Road will be closed. There will be a walkthrough with MDOT this week, Schneider said.
At the same time, Acadia visitation numbers are down 3% from 2022, which would still make it the third busiest year on record, Schneider said. June, a wet and dreary month in 2023, was down 6%. “That was certainly a factor,” he said.
“Our mission here at the Bar Harbor Chamber is to promote the business interests and general welfare of the town of Bar Harbor, Mount Desert Island, Hancock County, and surrounding areas while providing exceptional services to visitors,” Eaton said. “From our perspective, a plan can help improve how we help visitors navigate and experience our town, allowing us to enhance some of the positive aspects of tourism (such as job creation and contributions to our local economy) while decreasing some of the negative impacts. We believe this could help lead to an overall better experience for our locals and visitors alike while sustaining our local economy for our businesses.”
During a meeting this week, Town Manager James Smith indicated that he’d met with Acadia National Park officials to discuss multiple topics. In the past, Bar Harbor Planning Director Michele Gagnon has stressed that a regional, multi-organizational approach may be needed for Bar Harbor to deal with things such as sustainable tourism, summer traffic congestion, and affordable housing.
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
According to the UN, sustainable tourism is "tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities."
What that looks like for Bar Harbor, and if that’s Bar Harbor’s definition, and how Bar Harbor can impact tourism when Acadia National Park draws more than four million recreational visits a year and the Maine DOT controls the road onto the island will likely be questions the council tries to answer.
According to the UN,
“Sustainable tourism should:
“Make optimal use of environmental resources that constitute a key element in tourism development, maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural heritage and biodiversity.
“Respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, conserve their built and living cultural heritage and traditional values, and contribute to inter-cultural understanding and tolerance.
“Ensure viable, long-term economic operations, providing socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.”
How disasters can play into an area’s tourism-based economy was explored by Kurtis Lee in a February 7, New York Times article that focuses on Maui, which was devastated by a wildfire in August 2023.
“Rebuilding the town, according to some estimates, will cost more than $5 billion and take several years. And tense divisions still remain over whether Lahaina, whose economy long relied almost entirely on tourism, should consider a new way forward,” Lee writes.
Some residents there are still tenting on the beach. Some are in AirBnBs next to tourists. Only half the town’s 1,200 businesses are currently operational.
Another Times article (by Niki Kitsantonis) focuses on the Greek islands, where “tourism is crucial” and “accounting for a fifth of the country’s economic output, and communities on many islands depend on it. But critics say the development has spiraled out of control in some areas.”
Much like the housing worries on Mount Desert Island, affordable housing is hard to find on those islands, not just for lower income job holders, but for what Greece considers the professional class, which includes occupations like teachers. Tourism also increased in Greece. More hotels and more swimming pools have hurt the water supply on some islands and many worry about the character of communities changing in ways that they might not want.
In Bar Harbor, the Town Council has spoken about tourism in ways that have made papers since at least 2019 and sustainable tourism was discussed at the Town Council’s goal setting at the time.
In 2019, the Mount Desert Islander’s Becky Pritchard wrote, “The council voted unanimously to revise the strategy in question, 2d in the draft document, to read ‘work with stakeholders to ensure the maintenance of a sustainable tourism industry.’”
On Tuesday, Councilor Joe Minutolo said, “I think there’s some real consensus on some of these topics that we have with this Council. There are ways we can move the needle and we have to move the needle. It’s time.”
Eaton agreed, “With the Town Council beginning discussions around sustainable tourism, we are excited to do the work alongside them and others. This is hopefully a first step towards many future conversations that will lead to a plan we can all support. Bar Harbor remains a top place to live, work, play, and visit. A sustainable tourism plan can help to further enhance that.”
THE WORKSHOPS FOR COUNCIL GOALS
The Town Council workshops will not be televised, but the public can attend in person. The first is currently scheduled for March 4 at 6:30 p.m. in Council Chambers at the Bar Harbor Municipal Building on Cottage Street. It will deal with alternative revenue streams. The next topic, most likely at an April meeting, will be on sustainable tourism.