By ROBERT JUMPER
One Feather Editor
We are a proud people with a strong culture. Our history is, well, ancient. It is our brand. It is who we are. The Cherokee as a race, as a people, are known, around the world.
People study us, both our history and who we are today. They fantasize and romanticize about being a part of the culture and want to adopt themselves into our Tribe. Routinely, visitors to the Qualla Boundary will come to our Welcome Center and want to know how they may become Cherokee. Many spend time and resources to track down a connection, any connection, in their bloodlines to tie their lives to that of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Thousands come to the Qualla Boundary every year to touch the culture and history of the Tribe. They come and watch the pageantry of our Mountainside Theatre. They absorb our history in the Museum of the Cherokee Indians. They flock to events like the Cherokee Indian Fair. They pick up a piece of pottery or beadwork or carvings to take back home a little of that history and culture with them.
There are very few people on the planet who haven’t heard of us. Telling people that we are here has never been the problem. Our brand is firmly in the minds of the people on planet earth.
We have a right to be proud of the success and popularity of our Tribe. It surely doesn’t hurt that we have one of the most productive economic generators in the southeast sitting in our front yard, but what we did with our success is more important. Our Principal Chief, Vice Chief, and Tribal Council have carried on a focus that comes from millennia of natural stewardship.
Maybe it comes from being a matriarchal society. The Cherokee people of the western North Carolina mountains have a mother’s love and devotion to each other. I was always told when I was a boy that the Qualla Boundary Cherokee people stick together. Oh, they may argue and fight amongst themselves as family members do, but when an outside threat came calling, the Cherokee family would turn all energy and focus to repelling any opposition.
Our mothers and fathers taught us respect for the land and for each other. And we learned great things. Things that helped us grow and survive, even in the face of persecution and attempts at assimilation. Our ability to adapt and our resilience is unparalleled. With all those survival skills, our ancestors taught us the value of honoring other cultures and the importance of showing compassion for others.
Our investment in adult gaming has given us great power to control a portion of our own destiny. Our homes are better; our health care is better; our community services are better; our child and elder care are better; our ability to preserve our culture is better, because of adult gaming. We are even able to expand into other opportunities for sustainable economy because of adult gaming.
One of the basic laws of product development is that, when you visualize a product, you must be able to convince a sustaining group of people that the product is something that they need, whether they need it or not. In marketing, this used to be much more of a guessing game than it is today. With the amount of data that is collected on each up us each time we pick up a smartphone or turn on a computer is at best astounding and at worst, frightening. Technology has come so far as to be able to tell us not just what we buy, but what we look at, and, over time, what we desire. Internet search engines are recording our searches. “Cookies” or little program links allow websites we visit to track our trips through the world wide web, documenting what you visited and how much you inquired about it. Companies don’t just use this information to advertise product to you, they use it to create new products to cater to you. You are helping them to visualize the product, so it is easier for them to make you want it; to think you need it.
Businesspeople long ago understood that you cannot force feed the people, any people, a product and have a good outcome. This particularly applies to the leisure traveler. They are buying a product, a destination or experience, that they don’t necessarily need. So, it is up to the destination to convince them that they want it.
There has been some discussion in our government about Destination Marketing. Some comments are concerning in that they sound as if they will attempt to “tell” the Tribe’s perspective visitors what to like. The data that I have seen doesn’t place cultural tourism at the top of most travelers’ lists. For our area, it is outdoor, eco(ecological), and agri(agricultural) tourism that dominates the lists. And that makes perfect sense, since we are in the Appalachian Mountains, and a gateway community to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The part of the world traveling community that comes to or wants to come to our area already have an idea of the kind of experience and destination they are looking for.
Surely, as we mentioned earlier, there are those who are culture and history buffs who are looking for a deep dive into culture. But that segment may not be big enough to be considered a sustaining group of people for our tribal economy. And even they want more than just a cultural experience. Family tourism requires the ability to have multiple areas of focus. Most families comprise of at least two generations, each with unique ideas and desires. Having products that deliver satisfaction to all requires an in-depth understanding of both the traveler and the product.
So, when marketing to the people who are our intended traveler market, we must be careful not to let pride get in our way. It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at a product to promote it, if it is not what the traveler is looking for. Surely, the Cherokee brand is powerful, but it has also come to mean many things, most notably adult gaming. As much of a blessing as adult gaming has been, for many it has changed what the EBCI is in the eyes of many of the family travelers. And we have lost some of that family travel business because of it.
Fire Mountain Trails is an example of the outside the box thinking that we need to further the cause of Cherokee tourism. It is a product that has been developed that has broad consumer appeal. Our trout fishing program is another premium product of our tribe. Neither is promoted or marketed in such a way as to attract a sustaining audience and obtain consumer buy-in.
Our tribal government and those responsible for marketing EBCI as a destination must look at who we are and what image we project to that portion of the traveling public that we must reach to achieve that sustainable group of people who will make a difference in our economy. Day-trippers and one-time overnights will not create a sustaining tourism revenue stream. We must convince travelers that they need to make Cherokee, N.C. their basecamp for any visit to western North Carolina. And while our culture is a strong draw, we must, through analytics, gain a better understanding of what tourists want and that will make them stay here, because they feel like they need what we have.
I don’t like to be force-fed anything, even something I like. If I feel like something is being pushed down my throat, I will move on to something or somewhere that I have more freedom of choice. I presume you to be the same. I also presume that most travelers are the same. If we want our tourism economy to grow, we must cater to those who we will depend on to support us, and that is the travelers.
