Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.37, it's FLX Morning Tuesday, it's Guest-O-Rama Day, and almost getting the honors is Jeff Shipley as our 500th, but he's number 499 interview for the year. Ah, I just missed it. If Teresa hadn't shown up, well, no, that'd be the other way, anyway, my math's not good. Good morning, and this wasn't in your notes, but I just wanted to bring it up real quick because we talked about it earlier this morning. You're hosting the ribbon-cutting for the Lux Hotel today, and what a great thing to have this rebranding into a higher-end choice property and lots of conference and banquet space and event space.
Jeff Shipley: Yeah, it's a gorgeous property, you know, it was the Holiday Inn, people know it as that property from years past, transitioned into the Quality Inn, new ownership, the actual ribbon-cutting's tomorrow, but we were just there last night, there was a benefit dinner for Connie's Diner that held at the Lux Hotel. They have put a substantial amount of money into the property, it's rebranded, you had mentioned that it's the Lux Hotel, which is part of the choice system, which is what they were, but they've rebranded into the Ascend line, and that's a more boutique, higher upscale type of property. It's gorgeous, they have done so much renovations on the property, all of the rooms got a complete redo, the common area's got a redo, the banquet facility, I mean it just looks incredible, and Woody's, the bar and restaurant, looks completely different from if anyone has been there to eat before, I'm telling you, I'm urging you, go there and check out some of the new renovations that they've done, because it just looks fantastic, it's a place that you want to go back and back to and have a great dinner.
Paul Szmal: So yeah, we're going to go celebrate the reopening of that property as the Lux Hotel and Conference Center.
Jeff Shipley: Two words, Marshall and Wings.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I misspoke, it is tomorrow, it's 3-6, is that when it is?
Jeff Shipley: Correct, yep, and then they're going to be giving tours of the property so you can see some of the amazing renovations that they've done as well, but yeah, I agree, those Buffalo Blue Bayou Wings, those Bayou Wings, that's good stuff. I like the chocolate ones too, but that was just, I was the only one.
Paul Szmal: We're looking for the Chamber Community Awards to give at the dinner in January, and these are kind of wild card, it can be a group or an event that somebody put together, or just somebody that's deserving of being recognized.
Jeff Shipley: Yeah, so we have three awards that we give out every year, and this is our biggest event, this is the biggest event that Chamber will do all season long, it's in the third week in January, so a lot of people come through this, it's great recognition for sure, but it's also a way for us to provide some recognition, as I said, for three awards, we give away a Business of the Year, which is always a big one, we give away a Project or Initiative of the Year, and we give away a Humanitarian Award, and last year we renamed it the Menzo Case Humanitarian Award for all of the incredible work that the former president of Generations Bank did. So we're looking for three award winners to give away, to honor, asking all of our community to send us their thoughts, there's some really outstanding projects, people, and businesses out there, and we want to use this forum to recognize some really good stories from the past year.
Paul Szmal: So some openings on the Chamber board, here's a chance, the time commitment isn't too odious, and you get a chance to set the direction for the Chamber and be right in the middle of things.
Jeff Shipley: Yeah, listen, one of the biggest things the Chamber does is contribute to the overall economic health and vitality of the community, and the only way we're able to do that is if we have strong leadership, and so we have a 15-member board of directors with an ex-officio spot as well, so we have some of the best and most intelligent minds out in the business world and just in the community in general. We have usually a turnover of anywhere from three to five seats every year, this year we have five seats, so we have five openings, and it's just a tremendous opportunity, A, for someone to give back to the community in this way, and B, to have a diverse organization representative of all of the wonderful industries that make our region go. You certainly don't have to live in Seneca County, we have membership in Geneva, we have Ontario County, other counties, so you just have to be a member of business with the Chamber of Commerce or a member of the Chamber of Commerce to be considered, but certainly something that I hope people kind of take note of, and if there's interest, please call us, because we would love to have your contributions to go back in a meaningful way to our community.
Paul Szmal: The Chamber, we've been talking about this for years, has been out front in terms of insurance and your knowledge, and it's open enrollment coming up for Medicare, and I see, of course, all kinds of changes for 2025, so you're going to have some seminars to help people figure out what's best.
Jeff Shipley: Right, big changes in store for Medicaid, Medicare particularly. Our chamber is one of the only, it was the first chamber in New York State to be a licensed health insurance brokerage. We continue to do so 40 years later. So we offer health insurance from a group insurance side, a business standpoint, and an individual side, as well as Medicare, and this year, out of all the years I've been doing this, I can't remember a year with bigger changes in the world of Medicare than this year.
Paul Szmal: Oh good, guess who turned 65 in December. You've got some education to have, Ted, so come on down to the chamber, it's going to be every Tuesday. So open enrollment for Medicare Advantage plans start very soon. Open enrollment is, it starts October 15th and it goes to December 7th. So even if you have a plan and you want to come and learn what's new and possibly look at other plans down the road, that's fine too. But every Tuesday from October 15th to, actually we're going to start a week early, so October 8th through December 7th. We're going to be providing from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., we're going to be providing free educational seminars, no cost. Come on in, you learn what's new in the world of Medicare and start to help make those decisions about what plan is best for you. So it's a great service for our community and we're just really hoping everyone can spread the word. If it's something that is of interest to you and relates to you, please come on by.
Jeff Shipley: How big is my donut hole going to be?
Paul Szmal: So that's one of the biggest changes, they've taken away the donut hole this year. That is a major change. People are going to be pleasantly surprised now in terms of when your insurance kicks in, you have to spend up to a certain amount before the insurance kicks in for your prescription drug coverage, that's called the deductible. And then you're in a phase until you spend a certain limit and then you're in what's called the donut hole that everybody knows it as, but that's going away this year. So yeah, see, starting to learn right now.
Jeff Shipley: Now I've been talking for a long time, very often people who have great ideas for a business aren't good at the nuts and bolts and the bookkeeping and the regulation and stuff. So you've got the Small Business Development Center Fast Track to Business Startup Workshops for $125, multi-day workshops covering everything, regulatory, marketing, payroll, HR, all of it.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, you said it. You said it. I mean, we were talking as we came on this morning, probably the best deal going that there is. So this is a program, we've partnered with the Small Business Development Center, they're out of the Onondaga Community College up in Syracuse, but they are the office responsible for our area here in Ontario County, Seneca County, the Finger Lakes area here. So we've partnered with the SBDC to put on these classes. I'm actually going to be leading the marketing class today at 11, but it's over a series of three days that they do this series of programming. And you covered some of the things that they have. They have a banker coming in to talk about lending and financing. You know, that's very important. You've talked about bookkeeping. All of the areas and facets of running a successful business, particularly geared for those that are thinking about it or have gone through the startup business, is what this session is really about. But anyone can benefit from some of these sessions. And we are just so delighted to partner with SBDC and the IDA, the Seneca County IDA is also involved with it, and various other local experts in the field. And we're going to come together and put on these fast-track to business workshops, as they're called. It's such a tremendous opportunity for the businesses and entrepreneurs in our area to come and learn more about what it takes to run a successful business.
Jeff Shipley: And you can hear from some of the titans in the industry or some of the people that were in your shoes before, right? And so it's a tremendous opportunity. It's a great resource. We're happy to do it. It's kind of what we see as the role of a chamber of commerce is to provide that education to create those networking and strategic partnerships and relationships. So this all fits into what we're doing. And like I said, today, later today, is one of the sessions I'm going to be covering the marketing essentials. But you can learn, really, it's A to Z on businesses and for the bargain basement price of $125. And for marketing, radio, one word, radio.
Paul Szmal: You've got the latest tourism numbers for the Finger Lakes.
Jeff Shipley: Yeah. So the Finger Lakes... So Seneca County, like I heard Teresa earlier, Ontario County, we all come together and we form what's called the Finger Lakes Regional Tourism Council. And that group enables us to do a lot, spread our money around, get more bang for our buck in promoting the Finger Lakes brand. So we've done a tremendous amount of marketing together. We've done a tremendous amount of research. So we have a lot of statistics and research and stats. And so one of the things that we do is measure the traffic to our area. Where are they coming from? How long are they staying? So the average length of stay in the Finger Lakes region across the region is about two days now, which is down a little bit from the peak. But we're measuring the first quarter and the second quarter. So it's going to be off a little bit in terms of the summer numbers here.
One of the things though that I really picked up on was vacation rentals, short-term vacation rentals. They grew by about 15% in the first and second quarter. But in particular, around the solar eclipse weekend, we grew 33%. There was a tremendous volume of people that came to the Finger Lakes region this year to experience the solar eclipse. Now, maybe some of them went home a little displeased because we unfortunately had the cloud coverage. It was still fun though. I mean, I had fun that day just watching it get really dark and everything. We didn't get the full thing, but hey.
Paul Szmal: I mean, absolutely. That's what we were talking about as it was happening, right? I mean, it was still a unique event that you'll remember for a long, long time. But the point here is that the region came together, all of the tourism agencies in the region came together and really did a remarkable job in marketing our area for these out-of-town guests to come in here. And shoot, I was at several places that day. One of them was Del Lago. They were doing a rooftop thing and there were people from Georgia and South Carolina. I mean, there were people from all over that made the Finger Lakes the place they wanted to come to experience that and it was a unique event. So yeah, kudos to the region, to all the partners for promoting that solar eclipse event because there were people here in a big way.
Jeff Shipley: And I think we had, in Seneca County, it was unprecedented. We had like 98% occupancy for that weekend, which is just unheard of if you're in that industry. There's someone who has a couple of short-term rentals right on my street and I've seen it this year. These places have been full just week after week after week.
Paul Szmal: Now we've talked over the past. You work with some people who help pair you up with travel influencers, writers, bloggers and that sort of thing and you're going to get some more coverage here very soon. This has been, I've been at the Chamber now for 15 years. Before that, I was in Ontario County working in that tourism office and I have never had a busier summer season than what we've just had with all of the media writers, the influencers and really what we're trying to do is get earned media coverage. Media coverage that you don't necessarily pay for, but it comes back to you and when it does, you have a lot of people that read those articles or see those videos in the case of influencers and make decisions because of that and it moves the needle. And so we had just a tremendous volume of travel writers this year, most that I can remember. We do partner with the region to make some of these visits happen. So a tremendous, tremendous season for our area and I expect to be coming on here in the future and talking about some of these unbelievable articles that we've had in this international media, these travel trade publications because it's just been incredible to see.
Jeff Shipley: And the other cool thing is I know we brought a group to Deer Haven Park and it was one of many stops that we brought, but they were so fascinated by the white deer. We actually saw, I think, four white deer on that trip. I couldn't have even planned it better myself, but they were so fascinated, it was totally unrelated in some ways to what they were writing about, but that's all they could talk about after they left, right? And it's just so cool to see those types of reactions and get that sort of energy for our area. If you live here and you experience this day in and day out, maybe it loses the luster, but when you see some of these new first-time reactions to our area, it's so incredible and we cannot wait to see the articles and the coverage that comes from our area.
Paul Szmal: Well, you get them in the tent. Maybe somebody comes up and they're going to do a thing on women's rights and they see the white deer and go, I didn't know you had that.
Jeff Shipley: Right. I mean, that's the whole idea.
Paul Szmal: So let's talk about a few things to do for fall right in the backyard.
Jeff Shipley: Yeah. Let's start at Deer Haven Park. This weekend is their fall festival and there is lots of incredible activities. It's bigger and better than they promised. It's going to be bigger and better than before, but they have a raptor show. They have chainsaw carving. So it's a fall festival, but it's artisans, food, come on out to, this is a perfect time of year. Again, I go back to, you were talking about this with Teresa in Ontario, leaves are changing. People are coming in. I mean, you can't beat the summer in this region, but you really can't beat the fall in this region. So fall festival at Deer Haven Park is this weekend.
Another thing that's happening this weekend is the dog, Wine Country Circuit Dog Show. That's happening at Samson State Park and boy, I promise you, if you are a dog lover, you need to go out to Samson State Park this weekend because it is such a fun time. We have a booth out there that we play around with, give some people a lot of great information to come back. But there's so many people that come to this event that are, and there's all breeds of every kind and flavor out there to see some really cool obedience skills and just to interact with that is so much fun to do. So that's this weekend as well.
The Three Brothers Winery, you know, we're getting into the time of year where there is cider to be had and they've got some really incredible deals on packaging their cider. They have an apple caramel cider that they're packaging this year along with their red apple bombshell. So Three Brothers Winery right in our backyard here is a really good place to go fill up on those cider lovers. And of course, it's in farmers market season is going to wrap up in the next couple of weeks and we're just so blessed in the Finger Lakes to be able to go down any road and find a roadside stand with all this great food and everything and boy.
Paul Szmal: We are. We are, Ted. It's just a wonderful place to be and especially this time of year. It's a wonderful time.
Jeff Shipley: Oh, and I will say the Chamber of Commerce works with I Love New York, the state's tourism marketing agency, to help promote fall foliage. So leaf peening, right? And we have a new feature on our website. We're actually sharing the feed with the I Love New York folks. So discoversenica.com, you'll go right to the homepage. That's the Chamber site in the background here, but discoversenica.com is the site for the tourism side of things and there's a map that lists all of the great places to go see leaf peeping and gives you a little idea of how far along are they in the leaves. Check out discoversenica.com, it'll link right to the state's leaf foliage map.
Paul Szmal: Excellent. Alright, Jeff, thanks as always.
Jeff Shipley: You got it, Ted. Thanks for having me. Great visit.
