SALEM, MA — The Salem panorama that Kate Fox leaves to tackle her new function because the Govt Director of The Massachusetts Workplace of Journey & Tourism is way completely different than the one she first stepped into as the town’s tourism chief in 1998 and got here again to after a brief hiatus in 2008.

Again then, she remembers the Witch Metropolis as being principally a summer season city for guests, with considered one of her missions to develop tourism past the waterfront from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Subscribe

“We had been all the time targeted on extending the tourism season,” she advised Patch on Thursday. “Haunted Happenings was born as a option to prolong tourism past the summer season and as a program that can assist entice guests year-round.”

Fifteen years later, there’s a pageant within the metropolis every month, a thriving restaurant and small enterprise scene downtown that caters as a lot to out-of-towners because it does residents, and naturally, there may be the Halloween phenomenon that attracted almost 1 million guests throughout October 2022 and now arguably lasts from the center of September properly into November.

“We had been capable of develop tourism and improve visitation, and that will increase tax income and helps the enterprise neighborhood,” she mentioned. “You had the elevated curiosity in Halloween and October, some motion pictures like ‘Hocus Pocus’ that obtained lots of people concerned about Salem. Lots of issues occurred concurrently.

“It was numerous synergy, numerous onerous work, and slightly bit of excellent luck.”

She mentioned a few of the first applications had been akin to “throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what caught.” Some tosses — corresponding to Haunted Happenings, Vacation Happenings, Ancestry Days and the Arts Magic occasion that became the Salem Arts Pageant — had been hits. Others, like the previous vintage pageant, fell a bit flat over time — finally being changed with the very talked-about Salem So Candy occasion every February.

“The extra issues we did the extra we discovered that teams had been coming to Salem as a result of it was a vibrant neighborhood and so they needed to be part of that,” she mentioned. “It takes numerous time to do the profitable programming that it takes to increase the season.”

The Beverly resident will now attempt to take the successes and classes discovered from her twenty years bringing folks to the Witch Metropolis to your entire state. She started her new place on June 12.

“The chance to work for the Mass Workplace Journey & Tourism is not one thing I might flip down,” she mentioned. “I’m grateful the chance got here at a time when the workers at Vacation spot Salem is robust, and the (board of administrators) is robust.”

Whereas she continues to be settling into her new place, she mentioned a few of the issues she hopes to deliver to the state from her time in Salem are the power to market and promote to each home and worldwide audiences, use the workplace’s web site as a software to draw guests and improve their keep in order that they return, and supply higher outreach by way of social media.

“On the finish of the day it is all about collaboration,” she mentioned. “Now I’ve obtained 351 cities and cities and 16 regional tourism workplaces to collaborate with so it is much more than I’ve had on the native stage.”

Fox mentioned that at no level throughout her time in Salem was that collaboration extra essential than beginning in March 2020 with the COVID-19 shutdowns. In an trade constructed on bringing folks collectively, she was amongst those that spearheaded the efforts to push folks away from the Witch Metropolis throughout October 2020, whereas additionally making an attempt to work with the companies to assist them navigate ever-evolving capability restrictions, masks mandates and even a really short-lived COVID vaccination requirement for workers and guests to non-essential public-facing companies.

“The pandemic was horrible in so some ways,” she mentioned. “Nevertheless it did encourage numerous collaboration and cross-pollination. We did numerous issues to assist the enterprise neighborhood to the purpose the place they survived the pandemic and are actually thriving.

“However I by no means need to be ready to inform folks to not come to a metropolis ever once more.”

Because the pandemic waned, her focus in Salem turned away from the Halloween tourism that had turn into more and more self-perpetuating to showcasing the town all through your entire yr when the crowds had been much less and the wild costumes had been a minimum of far fewer and farther between.

“I all the time love April in Salem,” she mentioned, “when the trolley first begins working and the climate is enhancing.

“That is after I all the time appeared round and mentioned: ‘It is a great spot to be.'”

(Scott Souza is a Patch subject editor protecting Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He might be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)