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Tourism — not that other one — is the area’s oldest profession.
Evidence concealed in the long shadows of the craggy live oaks in Sea Pines Forest Preserve reveals that visitors have traveled to Hilton Head Island for more than 4,000 years. The first to do so were Archaic (“ancient ones”) Amerindians, visitors who paddled here in hand-hewn dugouts to harvest oysters, clams, whelks and seafood. For centuries, these early tourists took the leftover shells and stacked them into a circular mound, which archaeologists believe was ceremonial — a sort of Shellhenge, if you will. (They were busy elsewhere, too: A second shell ring can be found at Green’s Shell Enclosure, a Town of Hilton Head Island park by Squire Pope Road.)
No one knows for sure why the ring builders vanished. But we know they came here because they knew the island to be a bountiful natural resource. It still is.
Tourism is essentially embedded in the human genome; we love to explore, to discover, to experience life in new places. But tourism behavior changes over time — and people, so changed, alter the places they seek to visit. Yet the evolution of tourism moves in predictable stages.
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THE TOURISM LIFE CYCLE
Invention. In the mid-1950s, Fred Hack and Charles Fraser initiated the first new communities on Hilton Head Island. Rutted sand roads accessed quaint beach cottages in Folly Field, Forest Beach and Sea Pines. (Many years later, after the island had “matured,” Fraser told me that the duo “simply wanted people to build bungalows, explore the beach, enjoy nature.”)
One afternoon, urged by his marketing director, John Gettys Smith, Fraser donned a Panama hat and an ivory-handled cane and took a stroll next to a big alligator. Photographers captured the scene, which was published in the Sunday New York Times with a tagline about the area’s bountiful wildlife and scenery. The image, as they say, worked like a charm.
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To learn more about ecotourism, attend the International Ecotourism Society Conference on Sustainable Tourism, being held Sept. 19-21 at the Westin Spa and Resort on Hilton Head Island. www.ecotourism.org
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Adventure. By 1956, so many people wanted to come to the island that the state of South Carolina built the James F. Byrnes Bridge. People began arriving in cars. The number of visitors went from hundreds per month to thousands. Tourists poured onto the island to experience its subtropical island environment and native people. They rode horses on the beach. They bought shrimp on the Skull Creek docks from local watermen. They watched Gullah families shuck oysters in busy open-air factories. They discovered Civil War forts. They saw pelicans by the hundreds, and marveled at the clean, flat beach that sometimes spanned 300 yards in width. They pledged to return again and again to Hilton Head. And they did.
Nature experience. Fraser and Hack moved on to create communities such as Sea Pines, Hilton Head Plantation and Port Royal Plantation and, as true sons of the South, sought to preserve the historic sites and natural resources in their communities. Fraser was especially innovative: In Sea Pines he set aside one of every four acres as permanent open space, carved out nearly a square mile for the Sea Pines Forest Preserve, developed miles of nature trails and bicycle paths and permanently protected historic sites such as Stoney-Baynard Ruins and Gullah cemeteries. And he hired interpretive naturalists to lead tours in the forest, on the beach and along inshore waterways.
Sunlust. By the 1980s, Hilton Head’s population had grown to nearly 30,000. The number of annual tourist visits soared to the millions and the original “Come away to nature” pitch had evolved into “Come on down to the beach!” It was a time of growing crowds, but research revealed that although more people were visiting the island, they were spending less per capita every year. What did these folks know that island business leaders did not?
Renewal. Today, there is hope for Hilton Head Island’s tourism-based economy. Leaders understand that more is not better. Better is better. Tourism remains at the heart of the local island economy, but there is more to do. The solution: Upgrade the visitor experience in a manner that promotes conservation and supports the island community economically and socially. This is ecotourism.
The good news is that Hilton Head Island is strategically positioned to embrace this new eco-economy. The island, in fact, is already actively promoting ecotourism. The Gullah culture is rising again through completion of the Mitchelville Freedom Park. The island is rife with excellent ecotour operators — everything from kayak, boat and horseback tours — and boasts more than 50 miles of public bike pathways. The community can be proud of its open space, preserves, historic sites, fisheries, lakes and protected forest and wetlands.
Yet the challenge is providing more access to these places. What if the Town of Hilton Head Island, the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, ecotourism professionals, and community POAs unified to establish an island eco-pass? This would afford individuals and perhaps small groups expanded access to Hilton Head Island’s most renowned ecological and historic sites. These resources benefit the public in many ways. But to appreciate them, one has to know they are there. Let nature be the great unifier.
Todd Ballantine is an award-winning writer, public speaker, educator, environmental scientist, artist and musician. He has written and illustrated three books, including the best-selling “Tideland Treasure,” newspaper columns and dozens of nature and history publications. Todd and Marianne Ballantine own Ballantine Environmental Resources, Inc., a national consulting firm based in Boulder, Colo. He lived on Hilton Head Island for over 30 years and frequently visits the Lowcountry for environmental consulting. Learn more at http://ballantineenvironmental.com.
