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Cooperation Urged for Arts, Tourism
Cara Baruzzi, Register Staff
05/03/2007
NEW HAVEN — It might be counter-intuitive, since they often
compete with each other for federal and state funding, but Connecticut arts and
tourism roups must work together to better promote themselves and the state to potential
tourists, symphony conductor Boris Brott told a group of industry leaders Wednesday.
"Coming together is important to getting exposure," said Brott, the keynote
speaker at the 2007 Connecticut Governor’s Conference on Culture & Tourism.
He spoke to a crowd of about 80 leaders in the state’s arts, history, film
and tourism industries at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale.
"It’s always a challenge," he said, adding that arts groups typically
view each other as competition, vying for the same limited pool of state and federal
grant money. "Our lifeblood is being able to find money, and we compete with
each other to do that. Some of you may find this closeness, perhaps, a bit unnerving."
But Brott, musical director of California’s New West Symphony, urged conference
attendees to take a collaborative approach to reach their common goal — namely,
bolstering Connecticut’s image as a tourist destination. Working together
is the best way to generate innovative insights, he said.
"Everyone in the business of culture and tourism knows the value of constant
creativity," he said. "When everyone works in harmony, the end result
is bound to have a special quality."
The Governor’s Conference on Culture and Tourism took place Tuesday and Wednesday
at the Omni as well as University Theatre. The event, which had not taken place
in New Haven in at least eight years, included seminars on how to market and promote
the state’s cultural attractions, sites and organizations.
The event previously was called the Governor’s Conference on Tourism, but
this year grew to include not only tourism, but also the arts, history and film
industries.
Awards honoring outstanding contributions to those fields were handed out at the
events. Among them, the Yale Council on Archaeological Studies received a Heritage
Preservation Award at a ceremony Tuesday, and Robert Stern, a New Haven architect,
received the History Award at the Governor’s Awards for Excellence in Culture
& Tourism on Wednesday.
Reprinted from an article on the New Haven Register Web site.
©New Haven Register 2007
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