Population: 106
Situation: Town is in a economically hard spot, need to find sustainable income.
Action: Built Mountain Bike Paths.
Result: 20,000 visitors.
Copper Harbor has been around since around 1843 but officially became a town in the 2010 census. So it just recently became an official town. The city was founded on, drum roll please, copper. Today the town aims to employ creative city developments used by to draw bike tourism to bolster their new cities economic power.
Copper Harbor has what many small towns to work with, natural beauty and land from industry of a by-gone time, BUT they got creative with their development and are doing extremely well. They have 20,000 visitors to a town of 106 people because they made a very unique biking path. Single strack is a elevated platform on single cuts of wood. This is an excellent opportunity for many small businesses to capitalize. Their 35 miles of single track mountain biking trail isn’t going anywhere. Biking is on the rise in general. There is a golden opportunity for a town to pull ahead and stay ahead. Those 20,000 visitors represent a 2 million dollar plus market. Not all bikers are living the #vanlife.
This is not lost on the local residents either. Bike friendly lodging is widely available from campgrounds, bed and breakfasts, and a good old fashioned lodge.
Copper Harbor is poised for long term growth. Their community seems to understand to continue they need to cater to bike tourists. They have built long term infrastructure in terms of bike trails to utilize long into the future. The natural beauty, god-willing, is here to stay. Best of all, it seems to town knows it is a tourist town and succeeding because of it. Copper Harbor is the perfect example of a tiny town doing extremely well.
Another example, for a town of 2,500 – 3,500 a studied showed that a town of this size can support at least 10 restaurants. Copper Harbor supports 6 and have 106 in population.
Copper Harbor should continue on the path it is on. Here are a few tips to make your town more bike friendly:
There are other towns using a bike tourism strategies:
Emporia, Kansas – Gravel Grinding Capital of the World TLDR: Population: 24,724 Situation: Emporia was a small town with an
Saugatuck, Michigan – Pivoting from Pine to Paintings TLDR: Population: 925 Situation: Saugatuck, Michigan was a booming logging town in
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