HOLYOKE — The Tourism Advisory Committee has announced it is accepting proposals for projects in line with the city’s Historic Tourism Plan and through the Mass Gaming Commission’s Community Mitigation Fund, the committee can fund three to five projects of up to $9,500 each for organizations whose projects and initiatives align with enhancing the city’s historic tourism assets.
In 2023, the city finalized the Holyoke Historic and Cultural Tourism Plan which builds off the 2019 plan. The Holyoke Tourism plan engaged with stakeholders to determine action items that could be taken within the city to enhance Holyoke’s potential for tourism.
Some of these projects have already been taken on and have seen success such as the designation of the Puerto Rican Cultural District on Main Street, formation of the Tourism Advisory Committee and developing wayfinding studies to improve navigation and signage.
Since the plan’s release, Holyoke’s tourism efforts have focused on building a solid foundation. Now having that framework laid, the committee is ready to turn focus to historic tourism. Historic tourism is growing nationwide and cities like Holyoke feel primed to be leaders in that sector.
“The 2019 tourism plan got us in a good direction, but it didn’t talk at all about historic tourism, or heritage tourism, as they call it. So, we were able to utilize additional funds and expand the scope of the plan focusing on historic tourism,” Director of Planning and Economic Development Aaron Vega told Reminder Publishing.
After connecting with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, one of the main things the new plan calls on is establishing more interactive experiences with the city’s history. From historic architecture, being the home of volleyball and being an original industrial plant city, Holyoke’s history is wide and expansive across different areas and cultures.
Vega noted City Historian Eileen Crosby has been working on a stories program project that is interactive with photographs and first person stories detailing parts of the city’s history.
“So those kind of ideas, like how can we get the stories from the people that experienced the history. Especially as generations get older and the history’s lost. We’re hoping that we can hopefully find a way to use maybe technology but also human stories to capture our history,” Vega said.
Vega added he would love to see an applicant bring forth some sort of augmented reality experience that he could use via a cell phone around the city.
“I want to be able to take my phone, come on High Street and log into an app that shows me how High Street looked in 1930, then 1950. Sort of like the Pokémon Go, augmented reality, that stuff happening in gaming, is there a way for us to do something like that? That’s the type of stuff we want to see here,” Vega said. “Just so there’s a way for us to capture the history. Young people like my 10-year-old son who’s never really seen what High Street looked like never mind 50 years ago, he never saw it 20 years ago. Imagine he can hop on a phone and just sort of see that.”
From the St. Patrick’s Day parade to Fiestas de Patronales, the city prides itself in celebrations of rich cultural history, something Vega added can hopefully be captured as well by applicants.
“I think it’s important for people to recognize that Holyoke was a city of immigrants. The French Canadians, the Irish, the Polish, different religious groups, so I’d love to see those communities figured out a way to utilize this,” Vega said.
This recognition of historic celebrations is also in line with the Mass Office of Travel and Tourism and Explore Western Mass as they prepare for the statewide celebrations of Massachusetts’s 250th celebration.
The Tourism Advisory Committee is seeking creative proposals that are in line with the mission of the Holyoke Historic and Cultural tourism plan. These proposals may be for funding the growth of existing programs or new programs.
Proposal packages must be received by Sept. 30 in order to be reviewed at the Oct. 15 Tourism Advisory Committee meeting.
Proposals should include: concept, budget, partners and a clear path to completion and community interaction. Projects must be completed one year after the awarding of the grant.
For more information, contact the Office of Planning and Economic Development.
Overall, tourism can be another key addition to the city’s growth and projects through this aim to support historic city spaces for the betterment of Holyoke.
“There’s a rich history here in Western Mass., and we’re part of that. Anything we can do to bring more people into Holyoke, whether it’s the mural tour, whether its going to the historic tourism stuff in the next year or so, they go to a restaurant, they go experience something else, they go to the merry-go-round, whatever it is, it’s again just being part of the fabric of Western Mass.,” said Vega.
