Tag: Tourism

Heritage Tourism: One of Buffalo’s Strongest Economic Drivers

Buffalo’s history is not just something we preserve. It is something people come here to experience! Across the country, cities are trying to figure out what makes them stand out. In Buffalo, we already know the answer. It is our architecture, our neighborhoods, and our stories. Together, they create a powerful and growing part of our local economy called heritage tourism.

Why Visitors Come to Buffalo
According to data from Visit Buffalo Niagara and the “Everyone’s Heritage” report from Preservation Buffalo Niagara, 13.4% of visitors come to Buffalo specifically for our history and architecture. That is a big deal!

These visitors are not just stopping by for a quick visit. Heritage tourists tend to stay longer, spend more money, and explore more of the city. They visit multiple neighborhoods, support local restaurants and shops, and engage deeply with what Buffalo has to offer. They are choosing Buffalo because of what makes it unique.

A $658 Million Impact

The numbers speak for themselves. Heritage tourism generates more than $658 million in local spending every year in Buffalo.

That supports:

  • 6,000 direct jobs
  • 2,100 indirect jobs

These are real jobs right here in our community. From hospitality workers to contractors to small business owners, preservation is helping to support livelihoods across the city. This is not a small piece of the economy. It is a major driver!

You Cannot Replicate Buffalo!
What makes Buffalo special cannot be copied somewhere else.

From iconic landmarks like the Guaranty Building to entire historic neighborhoods, our built environment tells a story that people want to experience in person.

Once a historic building is gone, it is gone. You cannot recreate it. You cannot replace it. And you cannot attract visitors with something that no longer exists. That is why preservation matters so much.

Preservation Drives Economic Activity
Preservation is not just about looking back. It is about moving forward.
When historic buildings are restored and reused, they become places people want to visit. They attract new businesses. They create walkable neighborhoods. They bring energy back to areas that have been overlooked.

This is exactly what heritage tourists are looking for. And it is exactly what Buffalo already has!

You can read more about how preservation drives economic activity in the Place Economics study, Everyone’s Heritage: The Impacts Of Historic Preservation In Buffalo. 

What’s at Stake

Every time we lose a historic building, we lose more than bricks and mortar. We lose part of what makes Buffalo, Buffalo. We lose stories, character, and economic opportunity. Heritage tourism depends on authenticity. It depends on real places with real history. Without preservation, that foundation starts to disappear.

Moving Forward

Buffalo has an incredible opportunity to keep growing this part of our economy. But it requires intention.

We need to:
  • Protect historic buildings through local landmark designation
  • Support rehabilitation through historic tax credits
  • Invest in stabilization to prevent demolition
  • Continue promoting our neighborhoods as destinations

At Preservation Buffalo Niagara, we see heritage tourism as a direct result of preservation work happening every day across the city. When we preserve our buildings, we are not just saving history.

-We are supporting jobs.
-We are driving investment.
-And we are building a stronger Buffalo!

Become a member of Preservation Buffalo Niagara today and be part of protecting the places that make Buffalo unique.

To read more about Historic Preservation as an economic driver, please click HERE.

Lifetime Preservation Achievement: Ed Healy of Visit Buffalo Niagara

It is time to announce the winners of the 2024 Preservation Awards!

We have 12 awardees this year that span across preservation advocacy, preservation craft, residential restoration, commercial restoration, emerging preservation leaders, lifetime achievement, and more. We will be highlighting each of the awardees over the next few weeks – to entice you to attend our award ceremony on Thursday, May 30th at the Buffalo History Museum. You can get your tickets here. 

Lifetime Preservation Achievement

We are starting with announcing our Lifetime Preservation Achievement Award which will be going to the one and only, Ed Healy at Visit Buffalo Niagara!

Throughout his life and career, Edward Healy has been a champion of Buffalo and its beautiful, historic buildings. Professionally, Ed has worked, and succeeded, in establishing Buffalo and Erie County as a destination for cultural and architectural tourism for more than 20 years. We included a highlight reel of his work below – just so you can take in the amount of work he and his team have done.

A note from Bernice, our Executive Director:

Ed is someone everyone seems to know and love. His entire life has been focused on telling Buffalo’s story – a story that is founded on preservation and our remarkable historic architecture. Back in 2010, Ed helped to launch the Buffalo: This Place Matters video which focuses on the legacy that we have inherited at a time where not everyone seemed to realize what historic gems we had.

Ed and his team focus on local: local shops, local restaurants, local historic sites and beyond to create an experience that has put Buffalo and Niagara Falls on the map as a destination to visit. He took the lead with bringing the National Trust for Historic Preservation to Buffalo – a conference that personally changed the trajectory of my life and so many others who used the conference as a launch pad for their careers. People started to truly believe in Buffalo as a result of that conference! Ed directed the effort in the video Buffalo: America’s Best Designed City with John Paget which highlighted our historic city in so many ways.  I believe this video really helped to change the minds of people who did not believe in Buffalo. The good news is, the hard work is paying off! We see over 600 million dollars that come to Erie County for heritage tourism and almost 25% of all tourists coming for two things: family and architecture.

May we all be as fortunate as Ed to look back on our lives and see such a positive impact from our efforts.

One of our favorite recent articles that shows the passion Ed feels for our community can be found here: https://www.visitbuffaloniagara.com/the-rebirth-of-buffalo/

Here are some of Ed’s achievements and highlights throughout his career:

  • Worked to bring the National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual Conference to Buffalo in 2011, which arguably sparked Buffalo’s recent resurgence and increased attention to our architecture. During the conference, Visit Buffalo Niagara even trained cab drivers on the historic details of Buffalo’s historic buildings to make sure they were equipped to discuss and point out these places to attendees. You can read about its impact here. 
  • Ed and Visit Buffalo Niagara helped to bring the Congress for New Urbanism to Buffalo in 2013.
  • Served as Executive producer on John Paget’s short film, Buffalo: America’s Best Designed City, which was released in 2014. You can watch it here. 
  • Established a marketing campaign, The Unexpected Buffalo, which rolled out in 2017 and called attention to Buffalo’s overlooked aspects, including architecture and Buffalo’s unique brand of restoration and adaptive reuse of historic buildings. The campaign won an ESTO Award in 2018.
  • Worked to pitch and host hundreds of travel writers, architecture critics, and preservation journalists to write and highlight stories of Buffalo’s architecture, design, adaptive reuse, and resurgence.
  • Serves as board member of the Lipsey Architecture Center.
  • An avid photographer whose work has been featured in CEPA Gallery exhibits. A majority of Ed’s photography focuses on Buffalo architecture and buildings.
  • During Ed’s tenure at VBN, Buffalo has been named one of the National Trust’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations, America’s Friendliest City by the readers of Travel & Leisure magazine, one of 52 Places to Go in 2018 by The New York Times, a Top Ten Value Destination for 2020 by Lonely Planet, one of the Best Places to Travel in 2021 by Travel & Leisure magazine, and, most recently, one of the top 22 places to travel to in 2022 by Architectural Digest. The “Unexpected Buffalo” advertising campaign developed and implemented by my team was named the Best Branding and Integrated Marketing Campaign in the nation at the U.S. Travel Association’s ESTO Conference in August 2018 in the $1 million to $2.5 million budget category

Congrats to you Ed! This is an award we cannot wait to present to  you and your family and friends on May 30th. Well deserved, truly!

From Ed’s bio on Linkedin: Ed Healy is the Vice President of Marketing for Visit Buffalo Niagara where he is responsible for VBN’s destination marketing strategies. Ed’s portfolio includes overseeing all marketing communications, including the production of an annual touring guide, web sites, e-newsletters, social media, videos, podcasts and consumer advertising, as well as media and public relations. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.