The Boardwalk's Importance - A Tourism Perspective

As a former executive director of the Algoma Area Chamber of Commerce, current Friends of Crescent Beach board member and transplant to Algoma of six years, I love the boardwalk. I will never forget my first day in Algoma, visiting a friend, and heading north on HWY 42 into town. The anticipation of driving down the hill past the little cedar visitor center to be welcomed by a vast expanse of sand and water, red lighthouse just beyond. A little boardwalk dotting a path from one end to the other.

I later learned my appreciation of the beach and boardwalk’s simple beauty and unique beach accessibility was shared by the many tourists who stop on our shore while running the Visitor Center. Often, before I finished my first cup of coffee, someone would burst into the Visitor Center and want to talk about the wonderful walk they just took and ask me about the “wild dogs” on the beach. (the faux coyotes used to keep geese off the beach) Admittedly I only knew the basics of the boardwalk at the time - it was community driven, cost over $100,000, relied on incredible volunteers to come together, and was around 20 years old. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have learned while researching the boardwalk for this 25th Anniversary project. I encourage everyone to visit the stories website and learn about the people and historical moments in its creation. We are starting to see some of them pass away and it is so important to honor their memory.

In the tourism industry, it can be very hard to measure the impact of your efforts in the long term. What you do today may not impact sales tax or room tax for a few years, or it can be difficult to sort out exactly what is driving traffic to your area. Many times you have to follow the trends and try to help your community adapt to the demands of tourism in the moment and hope you chose to invest in the right thing. Today we are seeing a rise in eco-tourism and a return to people wanting to connect to nature and water. Accessibility is also a growing factor as the travel population ages. People with disabilities have more technological advancements that help them with mobility and communication , allowing them to enjoy the joys of travel with fewer barriers. In the past few years, the chamber has overhauled its restrooms and worked with the city to redo the sidewalks outside the chamber for increased accessibility. I would guess the champions of the Crescent Beach Boardwalk had these types of things in mind when designing and advocating for their project, but I doubt they could predict that 25 years later, these things would still hold and even grow in popularity. The Boardwalk was a project designed for a lifetime and in its first 25 years, it has served this community well.

Please consider donating to the Boardwalk Campaign to fund future improvements and keep our tourism economy growing.

-Sara Krouse

Friends of Crescent Beach Board Member

Friends of Crescent Beach is an all-volunteer organization working to research and compile information about the history of the boardwalk through interviews, newspaper clippings and records. If you have information you would like to add, please let us know by submitting through this link. We are collecting historical information, photographs, and personal stories of the boardwalk. If you would like to donate to preserving the boardwalk for another 25 years, please visit our donation page.