Vermont, trailing Maine in median age, seeks to turn visitors into residents
Vermont ranks just below its northern New England counterparts in median age, at 42.7 — versus 44.6 for Maine and 43 for New Hampshire. It also deals with the twin problems of a shrinking workforce and low unemployment.
To combat those forces, the Green Mountain State will promote itself through a “Stay to Stay Weekend,” an series of events held April 6-8 that hope to convert visitors to permanent residents. Vermont plans four “Stay to Stay” weekends through the year.
While Maine and other states have talked about this, Bloomberg reports that Vermont may the the first state to roll out a formal program around converting tourists to residents.
“I got to thinking, visitors are an ideal captive audience,” Wendy Knight, commissioner of the Department of Tourism and Marketing, told Bloomberg Businessweek.
On its “Stay to Stay” promotion page, the tourism agency features Bennington, Rutland and Brattleboro, Vt.
In Mainebiz’s “Five on the Future” outlook issue in January, at least one of the experts interviewed put forth a similar concept about how to convert Maine’s 36.7 million annual visitors into permanent residents.
“Our biggest opportunity is turning some of the millions people who visit Maine each year into residents and lifelong consumers of Maine products. Every out-of-state visitor is like someone stepping into our showroom,” Catherine Reilly deLutio, a former Maine state economist, told Mainebiz in January. “Few other states have such a unique opportunity.”
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