Franklin County Regional Council of Governments: Deerfield River Corridor Outdoor Recreation Study
The Deerfield River is one of Massachusetts’s great natural resources. For the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG), Cambridge Econometrics led an outdoor recreation tourism study of the Deerfield River corridor stretching from the Vermont border to Deerfield where the river meets the Connecticut River.
This stretch of river (and the broader area) hosts a wide variety of popular activities including tubing, kayaking, fly-fishing, white-water rafting, and land-based activities like hiking and mountain biking. In particular, the corridor is so popular during certain times that there are concerns about over-use and a lack of resources and local supporting infrastructure.
Plus, the corridor struggles to capture the economic spending potential of visitation as it lacks hotel accommodations with few easy connections between the outdoor recreation assets to the area’s town centers and commercial districts.
This study includes a mix of data analysis of the regional tourism industry, stakeholder outreach and an extensive survey about the river corridor’s challenges and opportunities.
Cambridge Econometrics distributed an online survey to more than 70 people and conducted over 20 individual interviews with a range of public, private, and non-profit stakeholders in the Deerfield River Corridor.
We also conducted secondary research to analyze regional demographics and economic performance, with a focus on the tourism sector in the study area. The study’s final report documents all of these issues and opportunities and presents a series of recommendations on how the region can better manage the operations and logistics of visits with specific ideas to expand economic opportunities.
Key Findings:
Challenges to managing the Deerfield River include:
- 1. lack of river facilities
- 2. safety concerns
- 3. river access and management
Opportunities include:
- 1. creation of more accommodation options
- 2. expansion of land-based recreation
- 3. packaging of recreation activities
- 4. improvement of town infrastructure and business support
Based on these challenges and opportunities as well as the feedback collected from the online surveys and interviews, we produced recommendations to meet eight distinct goals, which are:
- 1. Improve the coordination of river management and operations
- 2. Keep rivers safe and protect
- 3. Reduce informal parking and vehicle congestion on peak days
- 4. Reduce informal river access and keep official access points safe and clean
- 5. Obtain funding to support river management
- 6. Increase footfall and visitor spend in local towns
- 7. Extend visitor stays in the area
- 8. Expand market for land-based recreation and year-round tourism