Mediocre colors and the damaging pre-Halloween snowstorm this year left businesses that rely on the fall foliage season to scramble for other sources of revenue.
For the most part, these businesses made up the lost revenue in other ways, through harvest festivals; lodging area residents who lost power for more than a week; or from visitors who routinely travel to rural Connecticut in autumn whatever the quality of the fall foliage.
“It was bad, but it could have been much worse,” said Ira Goldspiel, proprietor of the Inn at Kent Falls in Litchfield Hills. “We were lucky about how it happened.”
Even before the Halloween snowstorm hit, the colors of the leaves on the trees this fall were less vibrant than previous years, said Chris Martin, director of forestry for the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection.
The trees were well-watered and healthy because of the heavy rainfall in late summer and early autumn, which kept them from changing their leaves from green to red, orange, yellow, purple. The lack of differential between day and nighttime temperatures caused muted colors as well, Martin said.
The colorful season would have been pushed back through mid-November, except for the Oct. 29 snowstorm. The heavy snow was caught by the many leaves still on the branches, and the weight put an early end to the leaf-changing season.
“If the branches didn’t break, the snow brought down a lot of leaves,” Martin said. “It definitely wasn’t our best foliage year.”
But the nearly two-week-long power outage caused by those falling branches was a blessing in disguise for the Cornucopia at Oldfield Bed & Breakfast in Southbury. The lodging generally fills up on the weekend with fall foliage visitors and is left with few occupants on weekdays.
“We ended up having a lot of bookings because of the power outage,” said Ed Edelson, Cornucopia innkeeper and Southbury First Selectman. “It was unusual for us to be booked solid eight days in a row.”
As a result, revenues at the five-room inn increased this year from 2010, when the foliage colors were far more vibrant, Edelson said.
“That is the way it worked out, but it is not the way we planned it,” Edelson said.
But non-hotel businesses that rely on fall visitors didn’t make out so well, said Randy Fiveash, Connecticut director of tourism. The attractions in the Greater Mystic area suffered following the storm as people didn’t travel because of the blocked roads.
“The Halloween snowstorm kicked us pretty good,” Fiveash said.
Despite less than vibrant colors, the fall season leading up to the snowstorm was above average because the weather was good enough that people were out and about frequently, Fiveash said.
At the Inn at Ken Falls, 90 percent of the October customers are from New York City, and they like the relief of rural Connecticut in the autumn regardless of how colorful the leaves become, Goldspiel said.
Kent has a strong reputation regionally and nationally — Yankee Magazine last year named the town the No. 1 spot in New England for fall foliage — so the place will be popular over the long-term anyway, Goldspiel said.
The snowstorm certainly ended the season early; fall foliage season normally runs until mid-November, Goldspiel said. The biggest losses were the weekday travelers and the cost of cleaning up following the storm.
“All-in-all, at least it didn’t happen until the middle of October,” Goldspiel said.
People still turned out for the annual fall events in higher than average numbers, said Janet Serra, executive director of the Western Connecticut Convention & Visitors Bureau. Events such as the Norwalk Oyster Festival, A Taste of Litchfield Hills and Harwinton Antiques & Design Weekend had attendance near or above their records.
“It was a tough season. The trees seem to be turning later,” Serra said. “Foliage was not as perky as it usually is.
“Fortunately we are not entirely dependent on foliage,” she said.
The Interlaken Inn in Lakeville still did solid business from wedding and leisure travelers, said Dan Bolognani, Interlaken director of sales and marketing. The 86-room, six building property nestled over 30 acres was at 100 percent occupancy when the snowstorm hit on Oct. 29. Even though the leaves weren’t turning, the customers were still turning out.
“People have traditions and routines that continue to bring them to Litchfield Hills,” Bolognani said.
