Industry
Part of How to build a coastal itinerary, step by step
How coastal businesses can help visitors plan better
Practical steps for coastal businesses: publish the tide and sailing information visitors need, and use the public data and training already available.
What to take away
- Visitors plan badly because the information they need is scattered. A local business can gather it in one place cheaply.
- Free data, tools and training exist specifically for coastal management, and businesses can use them too.
- Shoreline work in front of a property is now a design choice with published evidence behind it.
- Publishing honest seasonal information wins more repeat visits than marketing does.
Publish the four facts visitors actually need
A visitor arriving on a coast wants four things and rarely finds them together: today's tide times, today's sailing times, what is open, and where it is safe to swim or walk. A single laminated sheet by the door does more for a first-time visitor than a website redesign.
- Tide times for today and tomorrow. Updated daily, in large type.
- Sailing times, including the last one. With a note when the timetable changes over.
- What is open, this week. Especially out of season.
- Local safety notes. Where the water catches people out, and who to ask.
Nothing here requires a budget. It requires someone to update it, which is the part that actually distinguishes businesses.
The audience for this is larger than it looks. Visitors who feel informed stay longer, spend the extra hour rather than leaving early to be safe, and recommend the place for reasons that have nothing to do with the product. A board that saves someone from missing a boat is remembered far longer than a discount.
Use the coastal data that already exists
Coastal businesses often assume the good data is for agencies. NOAA's Digital Coast provides the data, tools and training that communities use to manage coastal resources, organized by topic from climate adaptation to ocean planning, with a stories section describing how communities have used the resources to address real coastal management issues.
A small business can borrow from that directly. Understanding what flooding, erosion or habitat change is projected for your stretch of shore is useful for a capital decision, an insurance conversation, and for answering a guest who asks whether the beach is shrinking.
Shoreline work in front of the property
If your business owns waterfront, the stabilization decision is worth taking seriously. NOAA describes living shorelines as protected, stabilized shorelines made of natural materials such as plants, sand or rock, using native vegetation alone or with low sills to stabilize estuarine coasts, bays and tributaries. They are presented as a natural alternative to hard methods such as rip rap or bulkheads, offering nutrient pollution remediation, fish habitat structure and buffering from waves and storms, and NOAA notes research indicating living shorelines are more resilient than bulkheads in protecting against the effects of hurricanes.
For a visitor-facing business this is also an amenity. A vegetated shoreline is a better thing to sit beside than a concrete wall, and it is a better story to tell.
Be honest about the season
The businesses visitors return to are the ones that told them the truth: that the boat runs three days a week in February, that the restaurant closes at seven, that the beach is not swimmable in an onshore blow. That honesty costs one booking and earns several.
Guides and operators face the same choice, which our piece on how island businesses can improve day trips looks at from the island side. Both fit into the corridor approach set out in our coastal itinerary process guide.
Common questions
What is the cheapest improvement a coastal business can make? A daily-updated board with tide and sailing times. It costs a marker pen.
Is a living shoreline suitable for every property? No. Site conditions, permits and exposure all matter, and it is a design question for qualified people.
Should we publish safety warnings? Point people to the local authority and the lifeguard service rather than issuing your own judgments about conditions.
How do we handle a canceled sailing? Have a plan before it happens: who has rooms, who stays open late, what a stranded family can do for three hours.
