Paul Szmal: Let's welcome in Jeff Shipley now from Discover Seneca and the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce. Good morning. How are you, sir?
Guest: I'm doing great, Paul. Thanks for having me as always.
Paul Szmal: I want to start by talking about one of the things that your group consistently offers, and it may be the only place in the area that does, and that is the in-person driver safety course.
Guest: Yeah, very popular, Paul. Actually, very popular. We have a course that routinely sells out. So, it's $40, and what it does is it helps either knock some points off your driver's license, if that's a situation you're dealing with, or save money off your car insurance. 10 percent, to be a matter of fact about it. And it's always usually, we go back and forth between a two-year event, a Wednesday and a Thursday. It's a six-hour course, so you spend three hours one night, three hours the next. This month, actually, it starts tomorrow. And we do have, I believe, three spots left, if anyone is out there and is interested in it. So, it's a two-day course tomorrow and Thursday, three hours each night. It's a great way to spend some time on a raining night and save a little bit of money on your car insurance.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. There's a very important chamber event that's coming up here in just a little over two weeks' time, August the 14th. Tis the season for golf tournaments, and that's when yours is happening at the Seneca Falls Country Club.
Guest: Yes, absolutely. We're really excited. This is always one of the showpiece events of our year. It's always so much fun. We have a great time. And, you know, Paul, did you know that more golf is transacted on a golf course than just about anywhere else? And, you know, it really is, you know, four hours, about four hours you have on a golf course. It's a lot of networking to be had. We have businesses that come and demonstrate on the course. They actually have booths on the course. It's just a really great networking event, a great day to make some partnerships and maybe some strategic relationships, if you will. And, you know, a lot of our teams also, they're very enterprising. They bring their vendors. They bring their potential customers to put on their team. So, it's a great way to think about doing business. And we have a lot of fun. This year, it's going to be August 14th, which is a Friday at the Seneca Falls Country Club. And we're just really excited. It always sells out. So, if this is something that you ever thought about doing, now is the time to get your team in before we get closer to the event.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, two things about this. Number one, if you're not a great golfer, it's a four-person best ball format for these tournaments. So, if you've got somebody good on the team, you're fine. You'll still get to have fun and enjoy. And number two, it's on a Friday. That means you can kind of play hooky and get a three-day weekend out of the deal by playing golf on Friday.
Guest: It's a good way to put it, Paul. I appreciate the selling tactic. But yeah, I mean, it really is. You don't have to be a good golfer to really enjoy yourself on this event. And it really helps us raise some money. More importantly, it helps us raise some money for the causes that we do throughout the year, including a number of charitable causes. So, it's a really great way to support your community, support your business community, and mingle with your fellow members. And the last thing I'll say, too, about that, Paul, is we really enhanced our website. We launched a new website coming into this year for the Chamber of Commerce. So, it's SenecaChamber.org. And there is a calendar of events there that's really handy now. It has all of the information on all of the events that we have coming up, including those two. It's really all in one spot. You can get all the details, and you can even sign up for things. So, I would encourage people to check out SenecaChamber.org.
Paul Szmal: Now, one of the events that's going to be on that calendar is coming up here in a little bit on August the 6th. It is a new member ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Seneca County location of what's called the Glove House, but they don't sell gloves.
Guest: Yeah, Glove House is a non-profit corporation that empowers children and families to really integrate, live successfully within their communities. And things like prevention, crisis stabilization, counseling, advocacy, all really interesting and important tools that families can use to really have a successful relationship. And our community gives back, and this is one of the ways that it does. And Glove House is certainly there. They've been a great partner in the past. They moved away from the area for a little bit. Now they're back. They're actually opening up in the Finger Lakes Premium Outlets. They're going to have an office location in the Finger Lakes Premium Outlets. We'll be there on Thursday, August 6th, 1130. These ribbon-cuttings, Paul, are something that I really pride ourselves on in terms of our Chamber of Commerce. We really try and do our best to get a really strong, supportive group from the Chamber. A lot of our Chamber ambassadors and other organizations that are members of the Chamber show out, turn out, and really support these businesses, whether it's the Glove House or somebody brand new that's opening a business for the first time. It really makes a difference, and it shows the strength and the power of our network. And we really put a lot into it. We come out with a photographer. They take professional-quality photos. And then after we're done, we leave them with not only the photos, but a little memory of our occasion. We leave them with that big ribbon that is all signed with best wishes. It's just really a great event. It's something that I think everyone should experience for themselves once to just see how we go all out for those investments in our community or those risk-takers when we come when we talk about entrepreneurs.
Paul Szmal: Jeff Shipley's on board from Discover Seneca and the Seneca County Chamber of Commerce on FLX Morning. Now, speaking of Discover Seneca, the tourism arm, there was an economic study that was done. And I just want to pop a couple of numbers in here in terms of economic impact. Visitor spending topped $86 million. Employment income topped $50 million. And here's a good one. As of March 2026, Seneca County sales tax collections grew almost 24% from the previous year. That's the second largest increase in the Finger Lakes. What those numbers mean is that, yeah, tourism is a vital part of our community.
Guest: It really is, Paul. You hit on the numbers. And it's something that we see on a day-in and day-out basis. But it really underscores the message of how important tourism is to our economic development in this region. And, you know, tourism promotion is much more than just producing, you know, flashy brochures or even a website, you know, and some of our advertising methods. It really is what helps not only attract visitors, but support local businesses, generate revenue, as you just mentioned, and strengthens the quality of place. And quality of place is something that economic development professionals use a lot. It means things in your community, amenities in your community, things that make your community special, things that make your community someplace that people want to live or businesses want to relocate to. And that's what tourism is. We, you know, we put out studies a lot. We put out numbers a lot. And they are really important. Yes, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day, tourism is about getting results for our community. It's about supporting businesses and jobs, creating a supportive network. You know, quite honestly, look around, whether it's Geneva, Waterloo, Seneca Falls, you know, throughout the Finger Lakes. There are so many businesses that exist within our community that we love each and every day we go to that, quite frankly, would not be here without the visitor economy. So tourism is so important. I know there are challenges that come with tourism, you know, whether it's trying to get a table at night and in the summer and you got to wait around a while or some heavy traffic at some of our events. But I'm telling you that tourism is so vitally important to our economy. And that's one of the things that we try and do. This is those numbers that you referenced earlier were from a report that I gave to the Seneca County supervisors last week. And it is on YouTube. It is on a stream. And I would encourage people to go and check that out because it really is about helping the residents here in the Finger Lakes and in this community. Tourism is about helping residents grow and bringing those things to our community that otherwise we probably would not have. So it's really about creating that sense of community, that quality of place that really powers economic development in our region.
Paul Szmal: Now, the last thing I want to cover this morning, something that we've talked about here on the program, but I've noticed in a couple of the community groups on social media, people have been asking, OK, well, what's the building that's going up next to the Duncan at the corner of 414 and 318? So let's do a little myth busting here and tell everybody exactly what that building is going to be.
Guest: OK, yeah, absolutely. So the building is going to be a welcome center for our community, for Seneca County. It's going to be located right off of the thruway exit number 41 on the corner of 318 and 414. It's about 3,300 square foot. It was formerly home to the McGee House, which was a brick building that stood on that corner for many, many years. This is going to be a grand showcase for our community. You know, I just got done talking about the power of tourism for economic development. So yes, it is going to be a welcome center. It's going to be a source of information for visitors as they stop through our community and on their way to experience really fantastic things here in the Finger Lakes. But it's also going to be a showcase for our community as well as our businesses. And so we're going to have exhibits in the facility to showcase and tout our products that are from here, the businesses that are from here. It's certainly not on the scale of the Finger Lakes Welcome Center on the shore of Seneca Lake in Geneva. You know, we don't have the type of funding to support quite that facility. But it will be as good a facsimile as we can replicate for our community. And it's going to be right in the heart of the most heavily trafficked corridor in the northern Finger Lakes area and certainly in Seneca County.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, it'll be nice to see that building reach its completion. Do we have a target day for that, by the way?
Guest: Yep. So we're targeting New Year's. We're targeting January 1st. We're hopeful that we can get in earlier ahead of progress. We're certainly working towards that end. And it looks great. You know, anybody that's driven by there now, there's a building now, it's up, there's a roof over top. It's really taking shape. But we're a little ways out before we can actually move in. So January, the new year is when we're targeting, but hopefully we can get in sooner.
Paul Szmal: As always, Jeff, appreciate the information. Thank you so much.
Guest: All right, Paul, I appreciate it too. Thank you so much.
