New Haven Independent

Uttley runs All of America, a small travel agency in Dover, England. He was among some 385 tour operators from the U.K., Germany, Holland, as well as other points international and domestic, whom Discover New England (DNE), the New England states regional marketing alliance, gathered at the Omni for three days of New England boosting.

They went on a bus tour Tuesday morning of New Haven. In some cases it was the first view of the Elm City for tour operators who help steer thousands of European summer travelers through New England — so tourism bucks were at stake as New Haven’s Scott Healy led the bus journey through town.

Andrew Bird, who runs a London-based online booking agency called Purely America, had had a tour of the Thimble Islands and Branford, been taken to check out the shopping delights at Clinton Crossing (the GNHCVB represents 19 surrounding towns in addition to New Haven) and then of course many meetings. Tuesday morning would be the first opportunity to check out New Haven itself.

He and some two dozen other Brits, with a few Dutch and German travel agents, were treated to Healy’s amiable and erudite touring. Healy, head of the Town Green Special Services District, used to lead Yale campus tours as an undergraduate.

Cathy Hawes, of Titan Travel, in Surrey, U.K., and Sebastian Wagner of FTI Frosch, in Munich, listened on the way to the Yale campus, the first stop, as Healy asked if they’d had a chance to get out to town to eat or drink.

When the tour operators said they hadn’t, Healy said New Haven has 130 restaurants, and among them some of New England’s best chefs. He said it is “a premier dining destination, although the reputation hasn’t quite yet caught up with the reality.”

Most of the travel agents, while they had been to New England before, had not set foot yet in New Haven, until Tuesday morning.

On a beautiful spring morning, Healy took the measure of the English crowd as he steered them around sites such as Center Church, built by our English forbears, on to Yale’s Skull and Bones, and then the statue of Nathan Hale on the Old Campus. Healy pointed out the rope-bound feet of the to-be-hanged American patriot.

Then there was a short video to be viewed at the Yale Visitor Center. There agents received Yale mug, cap and a few minutes to view poor stuffed, former Bulldog mascot, Handsome Dan.

Was the crypt of Colonial gravestones and the fruit of canine taxidermy a little much this early morning? No. Travel agents, especially English ones, fortified by caffeine and the mid-morning sun, proved a hardy breed.

It was on to the statue of Theodore Woolsey, of Woolsey Hall fame. Healy demonstrated that students rub his boot to give them good luck on exams. Tour agents, listen up: Many people bound for Mohegan Sun’s gambling tables do the same.

Would all this history work for their clients? Yes it would, said Hawes, Wagner, and Bird. “The English love history,” said Hawes.

The German travel agent, Sebastian Wagner added, “Germans love American history, and those who come to New England love it a lot more than those we send to Florida.”

The balance of their morning, the group was going to accompany Healy to the Nine Squares, Wooster Square, East Rock, and then the New Haven Museum and Library.

Munich’s Sebastian Wagner, who was taking a lot of photographs, said the muffin he’d had was first rate.

Would Rob Uttley send his customers here to see Nathan Hale and friends? “Oh, absolutely,” he said, especially after he’d learned that an IKEA was nearby as well.

Big Market

Western European visitors’ favorite U.S. venue is New England because of its proximity, according to Ginny Kozlowski, head of the Greater New Haven Convention and Visitors Bureau (GNHCVB).

It’s big business indeed, according to DNE pamphlets and other materials that filled the Omni’s mezzanine: Some 20 million visitors come to New England annually, and they spend in excess of $2 billion. Of those 20 million, 1.6 million are international travelers. Tourism supports 400,000 jobs and is rapidly becoming the number one industry in the region.

The GNHCB has an extraordinarily busy April, with the DNE being one of seven conferences being hosted at the OMNI. Before it was the gatherings of the National Association of Letter Carriers, and after it will come the gathering of the U.S. Slow-Pitch Softball Association and, at the end of the month the New England Culinary Tourism Symposium.

All told, said Kozlowski, this April, a typically slow month, has been remarkable, with what adds up to 1,500 visitors, spending 2,600 room nights and spending in excess of $500,000.

“New England is so popular,” Andrew Bird said, that his four-year old Purely America business is starting a subsidiary website. “We’re calling it Purely New England.” He said his clientele is both younger web-savvy people but also a new demographic group of older travelers who use the Internet. “We call them silver surfers, and they definitely come to New England on our tours. Everyone flies into Boston, and there’s a big loop, with Greater New Haven being the bottom-most part of it.”