2 • OCTOBER 2019
COAST RIVER BUSINESS JOURNAL
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Cruise ships offer opportunities and lessons
T
here was something really
awe-inspiring about hav-
ing so many enormous
oceangoing passenger cruise
ships in Astoria all at once last
month. Instead of manna from
heaven, the gods delivered tour-
ists from the sea.
Although I sometimes hear
contradictory things said about
how much they benefit a cross
section of local businesses, over-
all there’s no doubt that having
thousands of potential paying
customers delivered to our door
is a remarkable boon. There
are Astoria-size communities
throughout the nation and world
that struggle without success to
achieve one-tenth as much visi-
bility and visitation.
Possibly because ship arriv-
als aren’t quite routine, it seems
to me that some entrepreneurs
still are quite a ways from fully
MATT
WINTERS
PUBLISHER
& EDITOR
grasping both the scale of oppor-
tunity and the nuances of how
best to capitalize on it. Many
have, or are starting to, but in
other cases it hasn’t sunk in that
you have to — pick your cli-
ché — make hay while the sun
shines; strike while the iron is
hot. In a cruise-ship context, this
essentially comes down to being
ready to provide Columbia Riv-
er-specific goods and services in
a time, place and manner most
convenient to people who will
be here a few short hours.
The world is full of generic
items that lack all sense of per-
sonality and place. Living where
we do on this spectacularly his-
toric, scenic and delicious estu-
ary and coastline, we must
always strive to sell things and
experiences that are as uniquely
local as possible. And not just
“sell” — we ought to consis-
tently enrich our visitors’ lives
and our own by being open to
conversations, giving advice and
showing the way.
When it comes to making
money and creating a vibrant
economy, a key economic con-
cept is adding local value. In
this context, this means taking
raw materials and talent located
here and turning them into high-
er-priced finished goods to sell
to people who truly desire to
leave part of their money here
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with us. We have to make it easy
for them to do so. Blackberry
pies, nature-watching trips, cus-
tom-canned salmon and alba-
core, art objects and homegrown
folk objects — all these and a
thousand other things I can’t
imagine can all provide a trea-
sured memory to a grateful pay-
ing customer.
Beyond offering good,
unique, local stuff, serving vis-
itors — no matter how they
arrive — requires sophistication
in handling payments, or at least
having ample change. Careful
planning and things like match-
ing opening hours with arrival/
departure times can maximize
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the potential for making money
while people are here. It kills me
to see visitors peering into the
windows of closed stores.
All this applies to each of
our communities, which may
not have ship passengers but do
have throngs of razor clam dig-
gers, festival attendees and other
short-term seasonal customers.
It’s up to each of us to make sure
they find things they like, genu-
ine friendliness and a consistent
customer-service attitude.
In a generic world, we have
such amazing endowments. We
have to use them to our advan-
tage every time we get the
chance.
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