In case you haven’t been watching the news or live under a snow-covered rock, the northeastern United States has been bombarded with snow so far in 2015. Like much of the country, we’ve been coping with some extreme weather: Boston is buried, New York City is crippled and upstate New York is frozen.
The tourism board of Ithaca, N.Y. has thrown up the white flag and is encouraging would-be tourists to visit Florida instead, with a note that visitors should come back when things thaw out. The city’s mayor said that this move was a way of making lemonade out of frozen lemons.
The added bonus is that this wasn’t even a marketing stunt or ad campaign – no one received any monetary pay out. While permission was required to be able to use Key West’s content, the Ithaca team really just wanted to share their dreams of a warmer place.
The screencaps of the homepage message have gone viral, but a visit to Ithaca’s tourism site today shows nothing out of the ordinary. Disappointing.
As a resident of NYC, I can certainly relate to the misery felt by my upstate friends. While we haven’t been as buried as those a few hundred miles north, it’s been weeks of digging out, shoveling walkways and pouring salt on the sidewalk. Summer, please come back soon.
