November 9, 2025 • 58 mins
On today’s program, we speak with the executive editor of the Boston Business Journal about this weeks business headlines, including Tom Brady‘s cloned a dog. We also talk with a top executive with Evolv Technology in Waltham about efforts to curb gun violence. The latest BCI or business confidence index has been released by the Associated Industries of Massachusetts and the news is not good. We also explore the business of tourism with a top executive from Meet Boston. And finally it’s time to start talking about Christmas and Snowport in the Seaport.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the New England Business Report with Joe short
Sleeve and Kim Kerrigan, a weekly roundup and discussion of
the top business news impacting our New England economy.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning everybody, and welcome to the New England Business
Report on this Sunday. It is November the ninth. I'm
Kim Kerrigan along with Joe short Sleeve. Good morning to you, sir. Wow,
November the ninth. Already we are just cooking.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Huh yeah, I'm I think it's between six to seven
weeks to Christmas at this point.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
That scares me because you know.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I don't know, I don't seem to get anything done
in that regard. And the problem is there's more and
more of this family is you know, now there are
five grandchildren, so it's like.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Start there anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, I tell you digress, it's hard for me to
believe that we have barreled through twenty twenty five so quickly.
And I'm pleased to say I'm not the only person
who says that. I mean, I actually do hear that
from so many people. It just feels like we barrel through,
you know, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I want to say, well, twenty twenty six, I go
twenty times. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I know hopefully by twenty twenty sixth the government will
be back open.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Oh, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Everything, have everything.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
We got a great show this morning. Let's take a
look at what's coming up. First up, BBJ Executive editor
Doug Banks, he's going to join us. That's got a
couple of headlines from this past week. This one, I
think is really crazy. A company with local ties now
wants to clone your pet. Now, since this story has
come out, it's been announced that Tom Brady had his
(01:40):
beloved dog cloned by this But did you hear what
it costs?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Joe?
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I did, and it was funny that was buried at
the end. Finally, at the end they go thousand.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Brand, how about puppy and just train it?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, I'm how to rescue you know? Fright? Oh my mind?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Oh, as I say the dog, obviously there's personalities are different.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
But the dog may look the same, but it wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Actually, I just this is I listen, if somebody can
convince me why this is a good idea. I'm happy
to hear about it. And I understand people love their pets,
but fifty dollars for a dog that just looks. If
you get a cockapoo, they all look the same. You
wouldn't know any different.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Save the fifty grand, Save your fifty friends.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
This is just some advice for me. We're going to
talk about government shut down, what that means for flights
that's becoming a huge issue, including at Logan Airport. Also
going to talk to the co founder of Evolved Technology
talk about some of the needs and the advancement advancements
rather when it comes to gun detection technology. Really fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, second half of the program. You know, we often
take a look at what they call a BCEI, the
Business a Confidence Index, and I don't have to tell
you all out there it's not good. And the fact
it's back, it's moved below the fifty level, which is
into the pessimism pessimistic area, and it's back at COVID
(03:11):
levels of twenty twenty. It is now forty six point five.
Chris Garan of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts going to
be along to talk about that number and more importantly,
where it goes from here, because I was looking at
historic lows and I think it was two thousand and
nine that went all the way down to thirty three
point three, so there's plenty of plenty of rooms you
(03:34):
can still go, right, Yeah, So I don't know. We'll
talk to Chris about what that means to our business's
economy here, and then the Dave o'donald's going to be
along now. He's a vice president with Meet Boston.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Meet Boston is the sort of the new name for
the Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
And we're going to talk about tourism and twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And you know, I don't think twenty twenty five has
anything to brag about at this point, but I think
that they're hoping for much better things than twenty twenty six,
especially with the calendar that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Kim, right, Yeah, absolutely, not to minch. I mean, you're
right about twenty twenty five. I think it was pretty tough.
Remember the Canadians didn't count, they never came. Yeah, so
it'll be interesting to see what they're projecting, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And then well we have to run on down to
Snowpart in the seaport, right they're open and in the
holiday season down there is the Christmas season down there,
some one hundred and twenty five vendors. And you know,
I don't I don't think you can clone your dog
down there, but I think there's a lot of things
(04:36):
that you.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But you could probably spend fifty thousand bucks if you wanted.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
To pretty quickly. That's parking and tickets. You know, thing's
a little confusing.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
They talk about ticket prices and then and then and
the second line. Let's say, yeah, but you don't have
to have tickets, right, oh, buying tickets.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So you buy tickets. You can go to the front
of the line to get in, Okay, I say, just
go at a time when the line's not there. I
seem to get cheaper the older, right.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Get you're seeing with everybody money on today's program, aren't you. Yeah? Well, Kim,
you know we've been talking about it. Tom Brady of course,
cloning his dog, right, I mean, is there anything else
people are talking about? Well, the Boston Business Journal is
also writing about this topic.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
They're writing about it under a different headline.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
The headline on the BBJ is Georgia Church's Colossal buys
Viagin Mammoth revival company enters pet cloning market.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
So Doug Banks take us through this?
Speaker 6 (05:31):
So, yeah, you set it up perfectly. This the company
called Colossal Biosciences. They're known for trying to bring back
extinct species like the wooly mammoth and the dodo bird.
So they acquired a pet cloning company, which you know,
as you said, you know Tom Brady's been involved in.
I'll get to exactly why in a second, but the
(05:52):
main thing for people to realize is this is actually
not a joke. Like Colossal Biosciences is founded by a
Harvard University geneticist, George Church. He's known for developing the
first direct genomic sequencing method. He was one of the
driving forces behind the Human Genome Project twenty years ago.
He's co founded dozens of companies. This is a real
thing like we will probably see in our lifetime wooly mammoths,
(06:15):
you know, back walking on the earth. And so you know,
Colossal made headlines earlier this year when they used ancient
DNA to bring back the dire wolf, which is another
animal that hasn't been seen in over ten thousand years,
unless you count seeing them on Game of Thrones. But anyway,
so the story gets better because they just bought this
company called ViaGen and they do pet cloning and Colossal's.
(06:38):
One of Colossal's investors happens to be Tom Brady, and
it just so happens that, as you said, Tom Brady
used that technology. They got he got a sample from
his pit bull Lua, who died in twenty twenty three.
Before she died, he got a little blood sample, and
their current dog, Juni, was created.
Speaker 7 (06:54):
From that sample.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
So he's been walking around with a clone dog for
two years and apparently nobody knew that until this past week.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, he didn't want anybody to know because he spent
fifty thousand dollars to do it, which seems a little
bit nut.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
So I guess when you're Tom Brady, fifty thousand is
really not that big a deal.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, absolutely interesting though this technology obviously they're they're using
it to clone pets, but this is this is something
that investors and everybody wants to see maybe go a
lot further. And there's got to be some kind of
ethical issue associated with this. Correct.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
Oh yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
I mean, there's there's a lot of questions. You know,
barbar Streisand was another celebrity who had cloned her pet
and took a lot of it, took a lot of
flak online. I think, you know, there's there's there's a
lot of issues, But who's going to get between someone
in their beloved pet, right, I mean, this is a
relationship that you don't want to mess with.
Speaker 7 (07:45):
And if there's the science.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
To do it, and you know, people can do it,
I mean we're you know, we cloned Dolly the sheep.
Speaker 7 (07:52):
It can be done.
Speaker 6 (07:52):
And they're you know, they're trying to do this for
conservation purposes too, Right, there's species on our planet that
are going extinct all the time, and they're trying to
keep them and save them. So I think that it's
a really interesting ethical debate going on and worth watching
for sure.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
All Right, he's Doug Banks.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He's the executive editor of the Boston Business Journal, and
that certainly is a talker this week, no doubt about that.
The other thing that's going on obviously has to do with,
you know, our air traffic controllers and Logan Airport and
the government shut down. Now you have a couple of
stories on this topic there, Doug one, A Florida city
(08:30):
is no longer the top flight destination from Logan Airport
this year. That doesn't exactly go to the heart of
the problem here, but nonetheless tell us about that.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
Yeah, so what's happening. Let me just sort of set
it up.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
But as everybody knows, they've seen the news that FAA's planning,
you know, has planned to cut four percent of flights
at forty major airports this weekend, and it's expected to
ramp up to ten percent this coming week. If you
look at Boston, which is one of the top two
twenty largest airports in the country, schedule flights in November
(09:04):
and December for Boston that's you're looking at, it could
be three thousand flight cancelations. Turns out my wife is
actually in Orlando, Florida right now. We wondering whether she's
gonna be able to make it back to Boston today.
And speaking of Florida, as you mentioned, Orlando was the
number one destination for travelers from Boston until it got
displaced by a new number one city over the past year,
(09:27):
and that was Chicago's O'Hare. So Orlando actually slipped to
number three. When you look at the number of flights
in and out of Boston and so Chicago, and then
number two was Atlanta and number three is Orlando. It
will be interesting to see where those numbers end up
after the next week or several weeks when we see
all these flights being canceled.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So just a side note, this is really this issue
associated with air travel is really a big business story.
Beyond the fact that this is just big business, the
effects of people not being able to move around in
the country, It just seems to me, Doug, that this
(10:09):
could be one of the biggest fallouts from the shutdown.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
Yeah, and we've been talking about this for years. The
median age for air traffic controllers is roughly retirement age
and has been creeping up for the last two decades.
We've known the air traffic controllers we're going to have,
we're gonna have a shortage of them anyway, And now
with the FAA shutting it down and all the airlines
are scrambling.
Speaker 7 (10:33):
I mean we were reporting.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
On you know, Thursday and Friday, just every airline, American, Southwest,
you know, Delta, Jet, Blue, like all of them are
scrambling to find out what FA is going to make
them do what they can do, and we just don't.
We have so many planes in the air and not
enough people on the ground directing and where they should be.
We hear more and more of these crashes and these
planes bumping into each other on the tarmac at various airports.
(10:58):
Those reports are becoming more and more common. It's it's
affecting a lot of people's livelihoods. If you're you know,
working at h and you think of all the employees
at Logan Airport doing your baggage handling, doing you know,
doing security, you know, running even in some of the
in the terminals and all those restaurants. It's a huge
economic issue. And it doesn't you know, it's it's not
(11:21):
the federal shutdown. It's not just federal workers. It has
you know, these reverberating effects that are that are affecting
people in all kinds of jobs that you would not
have expected.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, you know, Doug, disney World in Florida. You know,
I've got the grandkids and we were actually planning to
go down there, but it's an Orlando destination out of
Boston Logan Airport. And you know, obviously if the government
you know, shut down ends, it would take two or
three or four days anyway to get the system back
up and running. Nonetheless, but you know, the shutdown ends
(11:52):
and we're supposedly back in on much better place.
Speaker 7 (11:56):
Yeah, we should you know, we should know. You know,
we'll know.
Speaker 6 (11:59):
As we go in the in the coming week or two,
we'll see what happens. But in the meantime, you know,
there's been a huge investment in Logan. You know, according
to the numbers we saw, Jet Blue actually became the
most common carrier in and out of Logan over the
past year. Jet Blue and Delta generally jockey for position
on that on that that bragging right. Delta of course
(12:20):
has its brand new terminal that they've built. And so
as we as we've said, two major airlines operating out
of Boston, not sure what's going to happen. And this
is all of course approaching as we come up to
the holidays with Thanksgiving and then the December holidays, when
trouble of course is on everybody's mind. So we're going
(12:40):
to see what this impact, what happens, and what the
federal government is going to do about it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
We'll Shay's gears just a bit. We've been talking a
lot about how a lot of different sectors are calling
people back to the office. It's time to get back
in the office. We are five years past COVID but
there's a company in Boston, an ed tech company that
actually they've decided it's time to close everything down and
just send everybody home and let them work from home.
(13:06):
Tell us a little bit about that. Certainly not a trend,
we hope.
Speaker 7 (13:09):
Yeah, No, it's really interesting. So this company called Sendage.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
They make educational materials like you know, similar to textbooks
and things like that. They also do workplace trainings. They
have about thirty nine hundred employees and they closed offices
in Cincinnati, Detroit, and Boston. What's interesting about the company
they had been in Connecticut. They moved here in twenty fourteen.
They moved into Peer four Boulevard over where Anthony's Pay
(13:34):
four used to be, you know, one of those big
glass buildings in the seaport. In twenty nineteen they took
four floors. But they've been subleasing that space pretty much
since the COVID shutdown when nobody was going to work,
and they've never filled it. They've moved some operations to
Center Plaza over near City Hall. And you know, we're talking,
you know, hundreds of jobs that did not come back
(13:55):
are not coming back. And you know, the upshot is
this comes out of time when Q three was the
first quarter in five years in which Boston leasing activity
was actually in positive territory.
Speaker 7 (14:05):
So we saw some steps forward.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Now we're seeing a step back, and so it's like
we're moving one step forward to back. Now we're like
one forward, one back.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
It's like a dance.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
And every day you never know whether things are it's
going to be positive news or negative. But the office,
the office, back to office dance continues.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, all right, he's Doug Banks. He's the executive editor
of the Boston Business Journal. And of course you can
go to the BBJ to read the story of the
headline is ed tech giant Senegage Group closes offices in Boston,
Detroit and the Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
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Speaker 2 (17:00):
Hi everybody, I'm Kim Kerrigan.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And I'm Joe Shortsley. If you want to be part
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Speaker 2 (17:28):
Welcome back everybody to the New England Business Report. Great
to have you with us on this Sunday morning. You know,
thanks to advances in gun technology detection in this country,
mass shootings in the nation are down, that's according to
our next guest. However, many guns are still being brought
or attempted to be carried into places where they are prohibited.
For example, Joe schools. YEA, certainly someplace we do not
(17:53):
want to see guns. A. Nilchak Kara is the co
founder and chief growth officer of Technology that's a security
detection based company in Waltham, and he's joining us this morning.
Great to have you along, and Neil, let's get started
with the fact that guns are still being detected in
these locations where they're prohibited, and as I said, most
(18:14):
specifically in schools.
Speaker 10 (18:16):
So fall is a happy time. Everybody's getting back to school.
We're done with summer, we get our lives going again.
We're hopeful of a new school year. Unfortunately, we continue
to see what's plagued our schools over the last five
or six years since we came out of COVID, and
that is kids bringing guns into schools. And so if
we look at the data over the last two months
(18:39):
of September October, as the school year began, there's about
sixty public examples of kids bringing guns to schools. In
a lot of cases they are loaded firearms. In many cases,
based on what we understand, there may not be an
intention to shoot inside the school, but there being brought
(19:00):
into places.
Speaker 11 (19:00):
Where the're prohibited from being in.
Speaker 10 (19:02):
And this is happening in nineteen or twenty different states.
We see these examples. Sometimes they're in a backpack, sometimes
they're in a waistband. Sometimes they're actually found in a car,
the student's car, truck, or somewhere on campus. But however
we look at it, guns are prohibited from being in
schools and we don't.
Speaker 11 (19:21):
Want them there.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
And now what are we learning from that data that
you're sharing with us.
Speaker 10 (19:25):
So some of these are being detected as they're coming in.
Schools are increasingly using weapons screening technology so that the
students come in the morning through the different entrances, and
those are working. They're detecting these weapons on these students.
There are other approaches like see something, say something. So
sometimes there's a word that gets around the school and
(19:46):
then the school resource officer will go look and investigate
and find us, as is done in a.
Speaker 11 (19:51):
Car, for example.
Speaker 10 (19:53):
So what is working well is multiple different layers or
approaches to identify these guns and that is that's a
positive sign. Unfortunately, there is probably more that are getting
into schools that aren't being detected as well. If you
look at the data from a school Shooter's database. WIH
does a nice job of looking at the data around
(20:14):
school shootings to try to understand it better. The most
common cause or situation where there's a shooting inside of
the school or at a school is a grievance or
an altercation, and so a student may not be intending
to use a gun that day, but what will happen
is that they'll have an altercation and then what we
used to be a fistfight turns into a gunfight or
(20:37):
a gun and that's the unfortunate scenario we're seeing too often.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And Nil Chakara is our guest. He is a co
founder of Evolved Technology. So we talk about, you know,
these places where guns continue to show up and more
and more advancements are being made to detect them. So
let's step outside the schools. There are other places obviously
where guns have either been pro or they certainly don't
(21:01):
have a place there are how are we doing there
and what's the technology like to try to detect weapons
as they are brought into places they don't belong.
Speaker 10 (21:11):
So we since nine to eleven, stadiums and arenas that
we're all familiar with have been using metal detectors and
weapons detection systems and those are working well. That's one
piece of different layers or approaches they have. As we've
seen violence in hospitals rise, hospitals are starting to deploy
weapons detection systems and other approaches. So those tend to
(21:33):
be in the emergency department, entrants in the main lobby,
and there are examples of guns coming in, particularly in
the ed and sometimes on the gurney of the patients
somebody that's been shot. Happen sometimes in gang shootings where
gang members will be brought in and they'll literally have
a gun under them or hidden on the gurney as
they come in, and hospitals are finding them they are.
(21:56):
And then there's other broader to workplaces, warehouses, factories, and
of course the last few months we've seen what's happened
in office buildings and particularly in New York earlier in
the summer, and so it's happening in a lot of
different places. The leading security folks are looking at a
series of different measures to put in place. One is
weapons detection, so that people just come through and weapons
(22:20):
can be detected and prevented from coming in. They're using
video based approaches as well, so can they see an
openly carried firearm, for example. And then there's other mitigations
like ballistic film or ballistic class that they minimize the
impact of bullets being shot through. And then in offices
we see other things like automatic stopping on elevators and
a couple of different approaches there. But there's a pretty
(22:43):
broad set of approaches and technologies that these organizations are using,
and they need to just figure out what's the right
approach for them given their specific situation.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Neil, There's a new initiative that you told us about
from the AD Council called Agree to Agree to help
reduce whose gun violence?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
What is that? How does it work?
Speaker 10 (23:04):
So we're seeing the effort to reduce gun violence come
from many different areas and with cross functional interest. So
obviously the security and law enforcement has been focused on
a little long time. Technology companies like Hours of alve
has been focused on it for some time, but we're
seeing others get involved. So Northwell Hospitals are the largest
(23:25):
hospital in New York. They have since twenty twenty had
a Center for Gun Violence Prevention. Mike Dowling, who's the CEO,
has been pushing gun violence as a public health issue
or epidemic and that's really brought a group of healthcare
professionals and public policy people together. One of the outgrowths
of that is the AD Council. The AD Council we
(23:47):
might remember did the Smokey the bear as way back
when and keep America Beautiful and seatbelt safety. So they
find societal issues and put a nonpartisan approach to it.
And the most free one that I'm starting to get
involved with is.
Speaker 11 (24:02):
Agree to Agree.
Speaker 10 (24:03):
So Agree to Agree is specifically around trying to reduce
gun violence. They have a few different pillars that they've got,
but it's a four or five year program to bring
a spotlight on this and help bend the curve down
on gun violence.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And ENIL obviously you know this. Agree to Agree is
an informational campaign. Is there more technology to be had
out there that could also curb gun violence?
Speaker 10 (24:32):
So there is there a big focus of Agree to Agree.
In others is safe storage of firearms at home and
it's a very basic technology.
Speaker 12 (24:40):
It's locks.
Speaker 11 (24:41):
There's different ways to do it.
Speaker 10 (24:42):
There's trigger locks that can be put on firearms. Is
actually taking the firearm and putting it into a gun safe,
and there's some more advanced approaches which are starting to
look at biometrics. So essentially the firearm is imprinted with
your biometrics and so the owner is the only one
that can fire the firearm. It's taking technology out of
(25:03):
some of the venues and putting them into the houses
and the other places to try to have based storage
and safe use of firearms.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Wow, really fascinating stuff and we want to thank you
so much for being a part of the New England
Business Report this morning. All right, still coming your way.
It's that time of year. Friend, Snowport is back in
the seaport. We're going to get an update on what
we can expect this year. Coming up in the next
half hour. This is the New England Business Report, Kim
(25:35):
and Joe.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
We'll explore more business news that impacts our New England
economy when they return.
Speaker 7 (25:42):
Are falling in.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
Love with You?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
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Speaker 5 (26:41):
Are you a brother or a sister of one of
Greater Boston's local trade unions and finally thinking about getting
ready to hang up your tools after thirty five years
of working your tailoff? Congratulations, you worked hard to build
your retirement nest egg. But now what? Let me help
you break through the nonsense and financial speak so we
can get to the questions that are important to you.
As you know, nothing gets built without a set of plans,
(27:02):
and neither will you a financial future. My name is
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creator of the Marshall Plan, a comprehensive, customized plan that
will help you answer important questions in all seven key areas.
You don't have to do it alone. There is no
cost or obligation. Call us at eight five seven three
four two ten thirty. That's eight five seven three four
(27:25):
two ten thirty. Well check us out online at Marshallwealth
dot com Marshall with two ls Marshallwealth dot Com.
Speaker 9 (27:32):
Advisory services offered through Capital Analysts or Lincoln Investment Registered
Investment Advisors. Securities offered through Linoln Investment Broker Dealer member FINRA, SIPC,
Lincoln Investment dot Com, Marshall Wealth Management and the above
firms are independent and not affiliated.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
And welcome back to the new ENGO Business Support.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
On this Sunday morning, the November the ninth, it would
be uh taking a look at some other business headlines
that you may or may not have seen or missed
this particular week. And you know, Kim, this topic is
something that we spend tons and tons of time on
over the past couple of years. But then I don't
know In my mind, it was kind of like quietly
didn't didn't get a lot of attention.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I thought it have been settled.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Actually yeah, And here's the headline, folks, Nantucket broadly legalizes
short term rentals and special town meeting vote, ending a
year's long dispute. I'm looking at an article in the
Boston Globe written by John Element. It was a town
meeting last Tuesday night, so just about a week ago, folks,
ending a year's long dispute. Both supporters and opponents saw
(28:31):
this critical, you know, to the island's economic future. I
guess the proposal was known as Article one. It was
approved by seventy one percent of the voters, clearing the
two thirds majority required by town rules. And so this
basically restores the right of owners to rent their properties
to summer visitors, a right that was under a legal
(28:53):
crop cloud since a land court judge ruled last year
that the practice.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Violated town zoning. And again I'm looking at a Globe
article here, But.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
That's what's in for it, sure is what you are
sort of trying to avoid was all of these companies
coming in and foreign entities in buying up all these
houses and then just using them as rental properties, you know,
and certainly that kind of thing is happening, but there's
also a lot of people who own those homes who
use them as a second income until they're ready to
(29:22):
use them full time. So you know, you can see
where this was a real issue for them.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, well that's what the opponents say, Kim, exactly. They
say this opens the door to you know, turning you know,
every property on the island into a mini hotel. And
is that what you really want if you're a Nantucket homeowner.
But at the same time, you don't want to be
restricted if you spend millions out of property.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Uncertain times when it comes to the economy of left
business owners jittery, and I think that's probably a light statement.
The latest Business Confidence Index has been released by the
Associated Industries of Massachusetts, better known to many people as
AIM and Aims Executive vice president of Public Affairs and Communication,
Chris Garin, he's joining us now to talk a little
(30:08):
bit about the Business Confidence Index. Chris, it's disturbing. It's
the lowest that it's been since COVID.
Speaker 11 (30:16):
First of all, Hello, the index has been in pessimistic
territory on our scale for the past eight months, and
the last time you're correct to say that, the last
time that employers have been pessimistic for that long a
period of time was during the COVID pandemic. So it dropped.
(30:40):
We operate on a one hundred point scale when we
survey employers, and anything below fifty qualifies as pessimistic, and
the scale slid down below fifty in March and it's
been there ever since, dropped down another point in October
to forty six point five.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Chris, put some clothes on this for us, if you will.
I mean, what does that mean, you know, to take
us through this number of forty six, What it means
what's going on out there?
Speaker 11 (31:08):
Well, confidence is really important because confident employers expand, Confident
employers hire people, Confident employers take risks to start new businesses.
And conversely, when employers are feeling a little skittish about
the economy, they may postpone a big order. They may decide, well,
(31:34):
I'm not going to put that addition on the plant,
maybe until next year. So it really determines in a
lot of ways the pace of commerces. We look forward
and right now what we're hearing a lot from employers
throughout Massachusetts. Really across all industries is my customers are
(31:55):
really uncertain. They're kind of playing it safe, and they're
putting off major decisions. And you put off major decisions
for long enough and the economy starts to slow down.
And that's what I think we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, you said it's across all industries, but is it
across all sizes of industry as well, or is it
hitting you know, one area a little bit tougher than others.
Speaker 11 (32:18):
Really really does vary. We're seeing it in the larger
companies particularly. It's been well documented in the life sciences field,
in the technology fields where a lot of the federal
support has been either up in the air or withdrawn.
But we're also seeing it a lot from smaller companies.
So the sandwich shop right around the corner from the
(32:41):
big biotech company is feeling the effects as well. And
a lot of you know, in Massachusetts, we have a
lot of smaller manufacturers, third tier suppliers, and as government
contracts are kind of thrown into question, that affects them
as well. Throw in continued uncertainty about you know, where
(33:03):
tariffs are going to land, if they're going to land
and immigration policy, and you've got you've got a whole
lot of uncertainty there, and we're seeing that reflected in
the confidence numbers.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Talking with Chris Garon, of course, he's the executive vice
president of Public, THEIRS and Communications for the Associated Industries
of Massachusetts also known as aim BCI is out and
nobody's smiling. I got but you know, Chris, looking at
your notes here, historically, I mean, we're at forty six five,
I guess, but historically that's far from the worst number
(33:38):
that we saw in two thousand and nine. That's correct,
thirty three point three.
Speaker 11 (33:44):
No surprise there that the lowest, the lowest readings that
we've seen were during the Great Recession. It's interesting to know,
Joe that will while employers are, while they're attitudes are
in pessimistic territory, they're not really deep in pessimistic territory.
(34:05):
They've been kind of just lurking below that fifty mark,
which is kind of the magin on line. So it
kind of reflects the outlook and the overall economy. It's
really on the one hand and on the other hand
type of economy where a lot of the numbers look good,
(34:27):
but employers aren't necessarily feeling good about it, and I
think that kind of reflects how the consumer economy is
running as well. If you look at all the economic numbers,
at least the ones that are still coming out, you know,
the economy looks pretty solid. But if you talk to
people at the grocery store, at the hardware store, of
that kind of thing, people see, I have that sense
(34:49):
of unease, and I think we're seeing that duplicated with employers.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
We have to kind of keep this in perspective too,
because I'm reading here that the historic high sixty eight
point five five that was back in ninety seven, ninety eight,
So you know, we don't see one hundred. You know,
our business owners are always there's always a certain level
of I guess being cautious. That's what I want to say.
Speaker 11 (35:15):
They are by nature, they are by nature circumspect. So
generally the number would would end to reside between forty
and sixty.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, Chris, let me ask you about comparing the confidence
level here in Massachusetts to the rest of the country.
Do you know where we fare.
Speaker 11 (35:36):
The AIM survey is actually a pretty unique instrument. I know,
the Purchasing Management Index has been more or less generally
reflecting the same patterns of somewhat depressed confidence among employers,
but it's tough to get a gauge. Our sense is
(36:00):
that Massachusetts has some unique challenges, again given the things
that drive our economy, the industries that drive our economy,
and the fact that many of those are kind of
at risk nationally, and many of those, frankly, are very
dependent upon federal funding. So I think that may be
(36:23):
contributing to making Massachusetts employers maybe a little a little
more uncertain than their colleagues are around the country.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Chris, is there any good news?
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I mean, and I know just from what you said
earlier that you know, forty six point five is a
far cry from thirty three point three, So, in other words,
we're just below the line.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
But I guess I ask you where is the good news?
Speaker 11 (36:46):
The good news is that, frankly, the so called experts
have been predicting a recession for the last two and
a half years, and frankly, it hasn't materialized. There were
more predictions of kind of an economic cataclysm after the
tariffs you know, were announced, in whatever form they were announced,
(37:09):
And while while it has created this pall of uncertainty.
The floor has not fallen out on the economy. So
I think the good news is that Massachusetts still has
a lot of really viable economic assets, and I think
those economic assets ultimately will help the help the commonwealth
(37:30):
get through, you know, whatever political machinations happened to go on.
So I think that the long term, Massachusetts is positioned well,
just as it has been for the last couple of decades.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Chris Garon, always great to have you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 11 (37:45):
Thank you very much, Kim.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
You know, of course, twenty twenty five is a drawing
to a close, so we wanted to find out how
the tourism industry fared this year and what we're looking
forward to next year in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
For that, we bring in Dave O'Donnell.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
He's a vice president of strategic Communications for the Greater
Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, which of course is now
known as Meet Boston.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Dave, Welcome to the program. Twenty five is slowly slipping away.
How do we do it?
Speaker 12 (38:17):
Sure is, but we've got a really exciting holiday season
on deck here and winter season as well. It will
be a great way for this season to culminate for
the year to culminate. Thank you for having me. It's
been a strong year. You know, there's been various aspects
of the visitor economy that have you know, at different
levels or degrees of pace, recovered over the past few years.
And this is a year where we essentially have kind
(38:39):
of fully recovered from some of the challenges of the
last several years. Yes, there's some issues internationally. Yes there's
some issues with you know, currency change and economic and
ballansies here and there. But for the most part, it's
been a great year. We see our hotel numbers back
to where they were pre pandemic, which is the strongest
in the indication of a thriving travel pards in the economy.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
That's fantastic. Let's talk about the holiday season and what
you guys, I mean, I know, twenty twenty five slipping away,
but the holiday season's got to be a really important
part of it.
Speaker 12 (39:11):
It is, it is, and you know, it's a great
way for us to create momentum leading into the first
quarter of twenty six, right. You know, the colder months
are traditionally, you know, a period where the visitor economy
slows a little bit. You know, you see, you know,
hotel numbers and ocupancy drop down into the seventies and sixties.
But if we can keep it strong through November and
(39:32):
December and the holiday season and the programming we have,
and there's so much iconic programming that we do have,
it's just a tremendous way for us to kind of
close the year, you know, and there's there's so many
traditional things that we have, you know, and it's it's
more than just the programming, although that's wonderful, you know,
with holiday pops, Nutcracker, Urban Nutcracker, black activity, all this
great stuff, but it's the ongoing experiences, you know that
(39:55):
the holiday lights, the tree lighting, the ice skating, just
we feel like compelling reasons for you know, residents to
stay longer in the city and maybe the day over
night and also should induce overnight visitations, you know, folks
in the region and then in the whole Northeast quarter
really of the States to coming to Boston to kind
of explore for two three days what there is to
(40:16):
see and do. There's of course, lots going on throughout
the holiday in terms of both holiday markets, you know,
cultural events, boarding events. You know, our great culinary scene,
which is about to get a boost with some mischel
and recognition. So we're really looking to ride this way
over the next six weeks right into the new year.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Dave o'donald's our guest vice president at Meet Boston talking
about tourism industry here, how do you a balance between
the domestic visitors and the international visitors and who are
you more focused on?
Speaker 4 (40:48):
And yeah, let's just start there.
Speaker 12 (40:53):
Well, it's it always is a balance, right. You know,
international visitors are so important because they they stay longer here,
they spend more money. You know, they might only make
us you know, nine ten percent of our overall visitor volume,
but they contribute more than fifteen percent to visitors spending
as it relates to spending volume. That said, you know,
(41:14):
the vast majority of our visitor audience is indeed the Northeast.
You know, you're talking about even visitors that technically or
Massachusetts residents, New England residents, and again through through the
Northeast quarter. You know, so folks coming in from DC, Philly,
New York. The Hartford market is a growing market for us.
So we try to be balanced, right, We try to
(41:35):
always make sure the messaging is resonating, you know, within
our region because we appreciate that a lot of those
folks technically are visitors because they're coming from over fifty
miles or staying overnight. But at the same time, it's
really important for us to grow a messaging domestically throughout
the country, right And for that reason, you know, we
have Incas we worked with that spread that word and
(41:55):
also in Canada as well. Right, we're really trying to
rebound and renew some of the really ship, particularly with
in Eastern Canada. And there are events that are happening
about the holiday season. You know, we all know about
the tree for Boston that comes to Nova Scotia and
the tree lighting middle start of this year on December fourth.
That is a key international market for US, right, it's
(42:16):
always our strongest international market, Canada, and we've seen it
dip of course in terms of the forecast for twenty
twenty five differ significantly. Even so at Meet Boston, you know,
we're really doing our best and we want the holiday
season to be something that stands out to make sure
that we're telling our story, you know, not only regionally
and domestically, but to make sure that Canadian audience, particularly
(42:37):
that Eastern Canada audience is hearing it. And then all
of our other traditional markets, you know, internationally, particularly those
of of you know, Western Europe. You know, we have
agencies in Germany, France, UK Ireland that really do find
you know, holiday seasons in Boston magical, even though they
have you know, their own brand in those other countries.
(42:57):
So it's really trying to balance it. It makes sure
that we're breading a message and offering compelling itineraries and
reasons to come to Boston and conveying that message through
whatever channel makes the most sense for that market, you know,
whether it's the domestic market or international.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
So, Dave, let's look forward if we could, to twenty
twenty six, because obviously this is a big, you know,
anniversary year for the nation and a lot of people
will come to Boston. Yeah, so this is no doubt
going to be a big year for the city.
Speaker 12 (43:27):
Correct, it will be, and and you know, especially again
on an international front, these are these are global events, right,
So when you look at specifically those five six weeks
from Junior to Junior to July where we have World
Cup intersecting with the fiftieth interseacting with Sale Boston. You
literally have the last World Cup match happening and the
(43:50):
day after, you know, the Sale Boston Plate of Sale
coming into Boston, Boston Harbor. It's going to be it's
all kind of suspend this right, and again they are
all events that in nature are going to have an
international deeal you know, specifically PIFA in the fall. Ships
you're talking about over one hundred ships from a variety
of countries. There could be a way in which will
(44:12):
cut matches dovetail symbolically with ships that are coming in.
You know, who knows, we might have matches here in
June and July that you know are our nations that
are also going to have ships that come in. And
then for the fourth you know, it's of course a
great domestic commemoration and celebration. But again we have we
(44:32):
have four international markets, key traditional overseas markets that are
very intrigued by interested in the story of America at
at semi quint centennial. You know, so that includes nations
like Canada and UK, Ireland, France that played an integral
role in the founding of the country. Anyways, they want
to share in that. So yeah, well a lot of
(44:52):
it is concentrated in that five six weeks. We're really
looking to showcase Boston globally throughout all of twenty six,
leveraging those key moments of June and July. But to
make sure it's something that resonates and has a link
a longer runway than just those six weeks.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Dave, how do you reach that visitor? Let's just maybe
we'll use Canada for an example. What is successful outreach
and how does that look is at a digital campaign?
What is it and how do you know it works?
Speaker 12 (45:21):
It can be a number of things. So I mean Boston.
You know, when we work in a specific international market
like Canada, it's primarily pr earned media and travel trade. Right.
We don't do as much direct consumer marketing in international markets.
It's more about trying to drive earn media stories, you know,
host writers, bloggers, editors, influencers. At the same time, make
(45:42):
sure that we're educating the travel trade, you know, travel
agency co operators, airlines about what products are new in
Boston and what we think create really intriguing itineraries and
why people should visit Boston. So we work in conjunction
with our international agencies and these dedicated markets to make
sure that that story and then we very carefully track
(46:03):
international travel trends and data. You know, it's data we
get through Masspoort, it's data we get through industry leaders
like Tours and Economics and long Wind International. We try
to make sure that our messaging is conveying and converting, right,
So we work mostly with our in market representatives and
ambassadors in those places. But it's also incumbent upon us
to go have a presence there, right, you know. So
(46:23):
for example, a couple of months ago, we hosted an
event in Toronto that was actually a ball game between
the Socks and Blue Jays, which turned out to be
very important call game at the end of the year.
But it's just sharing our messaging and sharing our brand
with the folks that are the key way to convey
the message to the Canadian consumer audience.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
All right. He's a Dave O'Donnell.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
He's the vice president of Strategic Communications for the Greater
Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, also known as Meat Boston.
Up next time to talk about the holidays in Boston
at the Seaport.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
You are listening to the New England Business Report on
the Voice of Boston w R Ko, Si, Sa, Joe
and Kim.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
We'll be right back.
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Speaker 5 (48:03):
Are you a brother or sister of one of Greater
Boston's local trade unions and finally thinking about getting ready
to hang up your tools after thirty five years of
working your tailoff. Congratulations, you worked hard to build your
retirement nest egg. But now what Let me help you
break through the nonsense and financial speak so we can
get to the questions that are important to you. As
you know, nothing gets built without a set of plans,
(48:24):
and neither will your financial future. My name is Mike Marshall,
President and CEO of Marshall Wealth Management and creator of
the Marshall Plan, a comprehensive, customized plan that will help
you answer important questions in all seven key areas. You
don't have to do it alone. There is no cost
or obligation. Call us at eight five seven three four
two ten thirty. That's eight five seven three four two
(48:47):
ten thirty. Well check us out online at Marshallwealth dot
Com Marshall with two ls Marshallwealth dot Com.
Speaker 9 (48:54):
Advisory services offered to Capital Analysts or Linkeln Investment Registered
Investment advisors. Securities offered through Lincoln Investment Broker Dealer Member
FINRA SIP. Lincoln Investment dot Com, Marshall Wealth Management and
the above firms are independent and not affiliated.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Hi everybody, I'm Kim Kerrigan.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
And I'm Joe Shortsley. If you want to be part
of the New England Business Report, sponsorships are still available.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
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Speaker 3 (49:20):
That's Any Business Radio all one word at gmail dot
com and we'll get your business on the show too.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
The New England Business Report on w RKO is brought
to you in part by Subaru of New England. Subaru
of New England dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Welcome back, everybody. Well guess what it's back snowboard in
the sport. You know, it's quickly become a festive holiday
tradition in Boston for shopping, eating, drinking and just general merriment. Joe,
I'm sure are you going make a little Mary there?
Speaker 13 (50:02):
Right?
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, Well, it's a signal that the holiday season is
upon us. Absolutely put the category like it or not,
it's here. But that's a great take. It's a great take.
And when you get there, you know, you feel very festive,
and you know it's very clear that the holidays or
Christmas has arrived in Boston.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
I want you to know that I had mulled wine
there last year. Muled wine mauled like he did, you know,
like the Christmas carol? You know, here to tell us
all about. This year's Seaport Snowport is Emily So because
she is the Associate director of Community and Partnership at
(50:42):
WS Development. Emily so great to have you with us
each year. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Speaker 11 (50:48):
It does.
Speaker 13 (50:49):
We're so proud to be back for year five of
the Snowpork Holiday Market, presented by Constant Contact. And that's
just one of the many activities we have in our
bustling Seaport neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
This Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
Wow. So what are the numbers? What do it look like?
Speaker 3 (51:05):
I understand that you have one hundred and twenty five
independently owned vendors.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
What will the crowds be like there?
Speaker 13 (51:12):
Yeah, we have over one hundred and twenty five small,
locally owned businesses at the holiday market. We're super proud
to support the local business community here in Boston and
New England. And then this season we anticipate seeing over
a million visitors come through in the seven weeks that
we're operational. So we're open through December twenty eighth, just
closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas days. But we're so thrilled
(51:35):
to be back supporting all of these small businesses and
spreading holidays here this season.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
You know, the market is certainly a big part of it,
but there's other things going on there too, like the
skating rink and the tree lot. Tell us about that.
Speaker 13 (51:48):
Yeah, there's something for everyone down here in Seaport. Our
Snowport Curling Lanes, brought to you by Mass General Brigham
Health Plan. Return right on Harbor Way. You can keep
walking down Harbor Way and you'll find Island Creek Oysters
Raw Bar, which will be open now for the winter season.
A little a prey ski theme happening there. Bowlers will
open later this month with iceless skating and some courts
(52:12):
for racket sports. We also have our Snowport Tree Market
at ninety nine Autumn Lane for all your fresh tree needs.
They deliver, they clean up, one stop shop for all
your holiday decore. And of course, our neighborhood mascot, Betty
the Yetty, graces us with her presence from the Himalayan Mountains.
She's back at Betty's Blizzard Bluff over at the super
(52:35):
Et Courtyard.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
Give us a little bit of the history of Snowpoort
and are we bigger this year than ever before? I mean,
everybody knows the business climate is a little bit iffy
as of recent So take us through the history of snowpoart.
Speaker 13 (52:50):
Yeah, Snowport launched back in twenty nineteen. That was my
first year with the company, so we've seen it from
start to today, and it's incredible how we've grown. Every
year we find a way to add something else, to
add something new, and of course the Seaport neighborhood is
just growing so rapidly, with new businesses opening every day,
it feels like, and so just to have so many
(53:12):
wonderful businesses, restaurants, bars in the area to get involved
with the Snowport too, has been really exciting to see.
We're really thrilled to do a Seaport Holiday Stroll this
winter on Saturday, December thirteenth, so you'll be able to
stroll all the holiday businesses and just have extra festive
holiday cheers. They'll be specials and different offers that day
(53:34):
at the participating businesses as well to support the busiest
retail time of the year.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, lots of general making. Mary As I like to say,
I don't know if this has been available always, maybe
it hasn't. I apologize, but Joe and I were talking
a little bit earlier in the show about the fact
that you can buy tickets and their time tickets, So
explain that if you will.
Speaker 13 (53:56):
Yeah. So, there's been such a wonderful response to the
holiday market, lots of folks visiting on weekends. Last year
we launched what we call timed entry reservations. So while
we offer free general admission to the market seven days
a week, there's always a free option to enter for
those folks who want to plan their visit in advance.
You can go download the Seaport Insider app and book
(54:19):
a timed entry ticket. So that'll allow you to know
that you're getting into the holiday market in a specific
thirty minute window. We saw great success last year, so
many happy families, Especially if you're visiting from the urbs
or outside of Boston. You know when you're going to
be able to enter the market. You get to enjoy
the market and then go explore and enjoy the rest
(54:39):
of the neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
Well, what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Fact that you might need a ticket, Emily, what's the
flip side here?
Speaker 13 (54:45):
Just because we have so many people who want to
visit the market, So on the weekends when folks are
off of work or have family visiting for the weekend.
It's just it's very busy. We have a capacity for
the market, so this helps us manage that flow. If
you don't buy a ticket, you can just join the
general admission line and we'll also get you in as
quickly as we can.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Talk to us a little bit about some of the vendors.
I think it caught my attention that there are a
lot of female owned, women owned businesses that are involved.
Speaker 13 (55:14):
Yes, of the one hundred and twenty five plus vendors
that we have at the market, eighty eight percent identifies
either bypop and or female owned. A big focus of
the market is supporting minority owned businesses and giving them
this incredible platform to be able to meet so many
great customers this holiday season. So when we review all
(55:36):
the applications for the holiday market, we love to be
able to highlight those businesses who might not otherwise have
had a chance to participate in an event like this.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Emillly, what's success When we get to the end of
December here and you look down at your desk, what's success.
Speaker 13 (55:50):
Success is knowing that we had over a million visitors
come and enjoy the market and make their holiday memories here.
There can be so much happening in the world around
us US, and while the holidays can be really crazy
and stressful, I think just to be able to have
those moments to also pause to look around you, to
make a connection with a small business owner, to know
(56:11):
that you're supporting their business, their dreams, and then being
able to get something to your family and friends and
those who hold deer is really really powerful and we're
so proud to support that right here in support and Emily.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
This is maybe something that you don't love talking about,
but I think it's imperative for an event like this.
Of course, this is based off of European markets. I
believe it was one in a specific market right that
this was based off of. And obviously security has to
be an issue, So just talk a little bit, if
you will, about security and maybe if I'm coming to
(56:43):
the market, what I might need to know.
Speaker 13 (56:45):
Yes, we do model the markets off of the outdoor
European style markets that you see all over Europe, and
we're thrilled to be able to bring that to Boston.
We do take security very very seriously. We have security
at all enter to the market, cameras throughout the market,
and we work super closely with our local law enforcement
officials just to make sure everyone is safe this holiday season.
(57:09):
So we encourage you to always be aware of your
surroundings and we look forward to welcoming you to the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Fantastic Emily, thanks so much for being part of the
show this morning. And a quick reminder, Snowboard will be
open daily through December the twenty eight, with the exception
of Thanksgiving and Christmas Day and for times you can
check their website.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
All right, Kim, time to talk about next week's show,
and this is kind of fun. There's going to be
a new restaurant in the town of Weston that will
serve alcohol now public restaurants haven't been able to do
that in over one hundred years. It's at the Josiah
Smith Tavern who's going to be renovated, and the guy
behind is Brian Pekini, who owns, of course, Boston Chops. Well, anyway,
(57:48):
Kim and I will be talking to him about his
plan for twenty six. That's on the new Wingo Business
Reports Sunday morning on WRKO. The Voice of Boston AM six'
eighty
This is the New England Business Report with Joe short
Sleeve and Kim Kerrigan, a weekly roundup and discussion of
the top business news impacting our New England economy.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Good morning everybody, and welcome to the New England Business
Report on this Sunday. It is November the ninth. I'm
Kim Kerrigan along with Joe short Sleeve. Good morning to you, sir. Wow,
November the ninth. Already we are just cooking.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Huh yeah, I'm I think it's between six to seven
weeks to Christmas at this point.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
That scares me because you know.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I don't know, I don't seem to get anything done
in that regard. And the problem is there's more and
more of this family is you know, now there are
five grandchildren, so it's like.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
Start there anyway.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Well, I tell you digress, it's hard for me to
believe that we have barreled through twenty twenty five so quickly.
And I'm pleased to say I'm not the only person
who says that. I mean, I actually do hear that
from so many people. It just feels like we barrel through,
you know, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I want to say, well, twenty twenty six, I go
twenty times. What are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I know hopefully by twenty twenty sixth the government will
be back open.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Oh, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Everything, have everything.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
We got a great show this morning. Let's take a
look at what's coming up. First up, BBJ Executive editor
Doug Banks, he's going to join us. That's got a
couple of headlines from this past week. This one, I
think is really crazy. A company with local ties now
wants to clone your pet. Now, since this story has
come out, it's been announced that Tom Brady had his
(01:40):
beloved dog cloned by this But did you hear what
it costs?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Joe?
Speaker 5 (01:46):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I did, and it was funny that was buried at
the end. Finally, at the end they go thousand.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Brand, how about puppy and just train it?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Yeah, I'm how to rescue you know? Fright? Oh my mind?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Oh, as I say the dog, obviously there's personalities are different.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
But the dog may look the same, but it wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Actually, I just this is I listen, if somebody can
convince me why this is a good idea. I'm happy
to hear about it. And I understand people love their pets,
but fifty dollars for a dog that just looks. If
you get a cockapoo, they all look the same. You
wouldn't know any different.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Save the fifty grand, Save your fifty friends.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
This is just some advice for me. We're going to
talk about government shut down, what that means for flights
that's becoming a huge issue, including at Logan Airport. Also
going to talk to the co founder of Evolved Technology
talk about some of the needs and the advancement advancements
rather when it comes to gun detection technology. Really fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Yeah, second half of the program. You know, we often
take a look at what they call a BCEI, the
Business a Confidence Index, and I don't have to tell
you all out there it's not good. And the fact
it's back, it's moved below the fifty level, which is
into the pessimism pessimistic area, and it's back at COVID
(03:11):
levels of twenty twenty. It is now forty six point five.
Chris Garan of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts going to
be along to talk about that number and more importantly,
where it goes from here, because I was looking at
historic lows and I think it was two thousand and
nine that went all the way down to thirty three
point three, so there's plenty of plenty of rooms you
(03:34):
can still go, right, Yeah, So I don't know. We'll
talk to Chris about what that means to our business's
economy here, and then the Dave o'donald's going to be
along now. He's a vice president with Meet Boston.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Of course.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Meet Boston is the sort of the new name for
the Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
And we're going to talk about tourism and twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And you know, I don't think twenty twenty five has
anything to brag about at this point, but I think
that they're hoping for much better things than twenty twenty six,
especially with the calendar that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Kim, right, Yeah, absolutely, not to minch. I mean, you're
right about twenty twenty five. I think it was pretty tough.
Remember the Canadians didn't count, they never came. Yeah, so
it'll be interesting to see what they're projecting, all right.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
And then well we have to run on down to
Snowpart in the seaport, right they're open and in the
holiday season down there is the Christmas season down there,
some one hundred and twenty five vendors. And you know,
I don't I don't think you can clone your dog
down there, but I think there's a lot of things
(04:36):
that you.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But you could probably spend fifty thousand bucks if you wanted.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
To pretty quickly. That's parking and tickets. You know, thing's
a little confusing.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
They talk about ticket prices and then and then and
the second line. Let's say, yeah, but you don't have
to have tickets, right, oh, buying tickets.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So you buy tickets. You can go to the front
of the line to get in, Okay, I say, just
go at a time when the line's not there. I
seem to get cheaper the older, right.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Get you're seeing with everybody money on today's program, aren't you. Yeah? Well, Kim,
you know we've been talking about it. Tom Brady of course,
cloning his dog, right, I mean, is there anything else
people are talking about? Well, the Boston Business Journal is
also writing about this topic.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
They're writing about it under a different headline.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
The headline on the BBJ is Georgia Church's Colossal buys
Viagin Mammoth revival company enters pet cloning market.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
So Doug Banks take us through this?
Speaker 6 (05:31):
So, yeah, you set it up perfectly. This the company
called Colossal Biosciences. They're known for trying to bring back
extinct species like the wooly mammoth and the dodo bird.
So they acquired a pet cloning company, which you know,
as you said, you know Tom Brady's been involved in.
I'll get to exactly why in a second, but the
(05:52):
main thing for people to realize is this is actually
not a joke. Like Colossal Biosciences is founded by a
Harvard University geneticist, George Church. He's known for developing the
first direct genomic sequencing method. He was one of the
driving forces behind the Human Genome Project twenty years ago.
He's co founded dozens of companies. This is a real
thing like we will probably see in our lifetime wooly mammoths,
(06:15):
you know, back walking on the earth. And so you know,
Colossal made headlines earlier this year when they used ancient
DNA to bring back the dire wolf, which is another
animal that hasn't been seen in over ten thousand years,
unless you count seeing them on Game of Thrones. But anyway,
so the story gets better because they just bought this
company called ViaGen and they do pet cloning and Colossal's.
(06:38):
One of Colossal's investors happens to be Tom Brady, and
it just so happens that, as you said, Tom Brady
used that technology. They got he got a sample from
his pit bull Lua, who died in twenty twenty three.
Before she died, he got a little blood sample, and
their current dog, Juni, was created.
Speaker 7 (06:54):
From that sample.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
So he's been walking around with a clone dog for
two years and apparently nobody knew that until this past week.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, he didn't want anybody to know because he spent
fifty thousand dollars to do it, which seems a little
bit nut.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
So I guess when you're Tom Brady, fifty thousand is
really not that big a deal.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, absolutely interesting though this technology obviously they're they're using
it to clone pets, but this is this is something
that investors and everybody wants to see maybe go a
lot further. And there's got to be some kind of
ethical issue associated with this. Correct.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
Oh yeah, there's a lot.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
I mean, there's there's a lot of questions. You know,
barbar Streisand was another celebrity who had cloned her pet
and took a lot of it, took a lot of
flak online. I think, you know, there's there's there's a
lot of issues, But who's going to get between someone
in their beloved pet, right, I mean, this is a
relationship that you don't want to mess with.
Speaker 7 (07:45):
And if there's the science.
Speaker 6 (07:47):
To do it, and you know, people can do it,
I mean we're you know, we cloned Dolly the sheep.
Speaker 7 (07:52):
It can be done.
Speaker 6 (07:52):
And they're you know, they're trying to do this for
conservation purposes too, Right, there's species on our planet that
are going extinct all the time, and they're trying to
keep them and save them. So I think that it's
a really interesting ethical debate going on and worth watching
for sure.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
All Right, he's Doug Banks.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
He's the executive editor of the Boston Business Journal, and
that certainly is a talker this week, no doubt about that.
The other thing that's going on obviously has to do with,
you know, our air traffic controllers and Logan Airport and
the government shut down. Now you have a couple of
stories on this topic there, Doug one, A Florida city
(08:30):
is no longer the top flight destination from Logan Airport
this year. That doesn't exactly go to the heart of
the problem here, but nonetheless tell us about that.
Speaker 7 (08:39):
Yeah, so what's happening. Let me just sort of set
it up.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
But as everybody knows, they've seen the news that FAA's planning,
you know, has planned to cut four percent of flights
at forty major airports this weekend, and it's expected to
ramp up to ten percent this coming week. If you
look at Boston, which is one of the top two
twenty largest airports in the country, schedule flights in November
(09:04):
and December for Boston that's you're looking at, it could
be three thousand flight cancelations. Turns out my wife is
actually in Orlando, Florida right now. We wondering whether she's
gonna be able to make it back to Boston today.
And speaking of Florida, as you mentioned, Orlando was the
number one destination for travelers from Boston until it got
displaced by a new number one city over the past year,
(09:27):
and that was Chicago's O'Hare. So Orlando actually slipped to
number three. When you look at the number of flights
in and out of Boston and so Chicago, and then
number two was Atlanta and number three is Orlando. It
will be interesting to see where those numbers end up
after the next week or several weeks when we see
all these flights being canceled.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So just a side note, this is really this issue
associated with air travel is really a big business story.
Beyond the fact that this is just big business, the
effects of people not being able to move around in
the country, It just seems to me, Doug, that this
(10:09):
could be one of the biggest fallouts from the shutdown.
Speaker 6 (10:13):
Yeah, and we've been talking about this for years. The
median age for air traffic controllers is roughly retirement age
and has been creeping up for the last two decades.
We've known the air traffic controllers we're going to have,
we're gonna have a shortage of them anyway, And now
with the FAA shutting it down and all the airlines
are scrambling.
Speaker 7 (10:33):
I mean we were reporting.
Speaker 6 (10:34):
On you know, Thursday and Friday, just every airline, American, Southwest,
you know, Delta, Jet, Blue, like all of them are
scrambling to find out what FA is going to make
them do what they can do, and we just don't.
We have so many planes in the air and not
enough people on the ground directing and where they should be.
We hear more and more of these crashes and these
planes bumping into each other on the tarmac at various airports.
(10:58):
Those reports are becoming more and more common. It's it's
affecting a lot of people's livelihoods. If you're you know,
working at h and you think of all the employees
at Logan Airport doing your baggage handling, doing you know,
doing security, you know, running even in some of the
in the terminals and all those restaurants. It's a huge
economic issue. And it doesn't you know, it's it's not
(11:21):
the federal shutdown. It's not just federal workers. It has
you know, these reverberating effects that are that are affecting
people in all kinds of jobs that you would not
have expected.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, you know, Doug, disney World in Florida. You know,
I've got the grandkids and we were actually planning to
go down there, but it's an Orlando destination out of
Boston Logan Airport. And you know, obviously if the government
you know, shut down ends, it would take two or
three or four days anyway to get the system back
up and running. Nonetheless, but you know, the shutdown ends
(11:52):
and we're supposedly back in on much better place.
Speaker 7 (11:56):
Yeah, we should you know, we should know. You know,
we'll know.
Speaker 6 (11:59):
As we go in the in the coming week or two,
we'll see what happens. But in the meantime, you know,
there's been a huge investment in Logan. You know, according
to the numbers we saw, Jet Blue actually became the
most common carrier in and out of Logan over the
past year. Jet Blue and Delta generally jockey for position
on that on that that bragging right. Delta of course
(12:20):
has its brand new terminal that they've built. And so
as we as we've said, two major airlines operating out
of Boston, not sure what's going to happen. And this
is all of course approaching as we come up to
the holidays with Thanksgiving and then the December holidays, when
trouble of course is on everybody's mind. So we're going
(12:40):
to see what this impact, what happens, and what the
federal government is going to do about it.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
We'll Shay's gears just a bit. We've been talking a
lot about how a lot of different sectors are calling
people back to the office. It's time to get back
in the office. We are five years past COVID but
there's a company in Boston, an ed tech company that
actually they've decided it's time to close everything down and
just send everybody home and let them work from home.
(13:06):
Tell us a little bit about that. Certainly not a trend,
we hope.
Speaker 7 (13:09):
Yeah, No, it's really interesting. So this company called Sendage.
Speaker 6 (13:13):
They make educational materials like you know, similar to textbooks
and things like that. They also do workplace trainings. They
have about thirty nine hundred employees and they closed offices
in Cincinnati, Detroit, and Boston. What's interesting about the company
they had been in Connecticut. They moved here in twenty fourteen.
They moved into Peer four Boulevard over where Anthony's Pay
(13:34):
four used to be, you know, one of those big
glass buildings in the seaport. In twenty nineteen they took
four floors. But they've been subleasing that space pretty much
since the COVID shutdown when nobody was going to work,
and they've never filled it. They've moved some operations to
Center Plaza over near City Hall. And you know, we're talking,
you know, hundreds of jobs that did not come back
(13:55):
are not coming back. And you know, the upshot is
this comes out of time when Q three was the
first quarter in five years in which Boston leasing activity
was actually in positive territory.
Speaker 7 (14:05):
So we saw some steps forward.
Speaker 6 (14:07):
Now we're seeing a step back, and so it's like
we're moving one step forward to back. Now we're like
one forward, one back.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
It's like a dance.
Speaker 6 (14:14):
And every day you never know whether things are it's
going to be positive news or negative. But the office,
the office, back to office dance continues.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, all right, he's Doug Banks. He's the executive editor
of the Boston Business Journal. And of course you can
go to the BBJ to read the story of the
headline is ed tech giant Senegage Group closes offices in Boston,
Detroit and the Cincinnati.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
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Speaker 2 (17:00):
Hi everybody, I'm Kim Kerrigan.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
And I'm Joe Shortsley. If you want to be part
of the New England Business Report, sponsorships are still available.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
You can email us at any Business Radio at gmail
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Speaker 3 (17:14):
That's any Business Radio all one word at gmail dot
com and we'll get your business on the show too.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Welcome back everybody to the New England Business Report. Great
to have you with us on this Sunday morning. You know,
thanks to advances in gun technology detection in this country,
mass shootings in the nation are down, that's according to
our next guest. However, many guns are still being brought
or attempted to be carried into places where they are prohibited.
For example, Joe schools. YEA, certainly someplace we do not
(17:53):
want to see guns. A. Nilchak Kara is the co
founder and chief growth officer of Technology that's a security
detection based company in Waltham, and he's joining us this morning.
Great to have you along, and Neil, let's get started
with the fact that guns are still being detected in
these locations where they're prohibited, and as I said, most
(18:14):
specifically in schools.
Speaker 10 (18:16):
So fall is a happy time. Everybody's getting back to school.
We're done with summer, we get our lives going again.
We're hopeful of a new school year. Unfortunately, we continue
to see what's plagued our schools over the last five
or six years since we came out of COVID, and
that is kids bringing guns into schools. And so if
we look at the data over the last two months
(18:39):
of September October, as the school year began, there's about
sixty public examples of kids bringing guns to schools. In
a lot of cases they are loaded firearms. In many cases,
based on what we understand, there may not be an
intention to shoot inside the school, but there being brought
(19:00):
into places.
Speaker 11 (19:00):
Where the're prohibited from being in.
Speaker 10 (19:02):
And this is happening in nineteen or twenty different states.
We see these examples. Sometimes they're in a backpack, sometimes
they're in a waistband. Sometimes they're actually found in a car,
the student's car, truck, or somewhere on campus. But however
we look at it, guns are prohibited from being in
schools and we don't.
Speaker 11 (19:21):
Want them there.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
And now what are we learning from that data that
you're sharing with us.
Speaker 10 (19:25):
So some of these are being detected as they're coming in.
Schools are increasingly using weapons screening technology so that the
students come in the morning through the different entrances, and
those are working. They're detecting these weapons on these students.
There are other approaches like see something, say something. So
sometimes there's a word that gets around the school and
(19:46):
then the school resource officer will go look and investigate
and find us, as is done in a.
Speaker 11 (19:51):
Car, for example.
Speaker 10 (19:53):
So what is working well is multiple different layers or
approaches to identify these guns and that is that's a
positive sign. Unfortunately, there is probably more that are getting
into schools that aren't being detected as well. If you
look at the data from a school Shooter's database. WIH
does a nice job of looking at the data around
(20:14):
school shootings to try to understand it better. The most
common cause or situation where there's a shooting inside of
the school or at a school is a grievance or
an altercation, and so a student may not be intending
to use a gun that day, but what will happen
is that they'll have an altercation and then what we
used to be a fistfight turns into a gunfight or
(20:37):
a gun and that's the unfortunate scenario we're seeing too often.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And Nil Chakara is our guest. He is a co
founder of Evolved Technology. So we talk about, you know,
these places where guns continue to show up and more
and more advancements are being made to detect them. So
let's step outside the schools. There are other places obviously
where guns have either been pro or they certainly don't
(21:01):
have a place there are how are we doing there
and what's the technology like to try to detect weapons
as they are brought into places they don't belong.
Speaker 10 (21:11):
So we since nine to eleven, stadiums and arenas that
we're all familiar with have been using metal detectors and
weapons detection systems and those are working well. That's one
piece of different layers or approaches they have. As we've
seen violence in hospitals rise, hospitals are starting to deploy
weapons detection systems and other approaches. So those tend to
(21:33):
be in the emergency department, entrants in the main lobby,
and there are examples of guns coming in, particularly in
the ed and sometimes on the gurney of the patients
somebody that's been shot. Happen sometimes in gang shootings where
gang members will be brought in and they'll literally have
a gun under them or hidden on the gurney as
they come in, and hospitals are finding them they are.
(21:56):
And then there's other broader to workplaces, warehouses, factories, and
of course the last few months we've seen what's happened
in office buildings and particularly in New York earlier in
the summer, and so it's happening in a lot of
different places. The leading security folks are looking at a
series of different measures to put in place. One is
weapons detection, so that people just come through and weapons
(22:20):
can be detected and prevented from coming in. They're using
video based approaches as well, so can they see an
openly carried firearm, for example. And then there's other mitigations
like ballistic film or ballistic class that they minimize the
impact of bullets being shot through. And then in offices
we see other things like automatic stopping on elevators and
a couple of different approaches there. But there's a pretty
(22:43):
broad set of approaches and technologies that these organizations are using,
and they need to just figure out what's the right
approach for them given their specific situation.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Neil, There's a new initiative that you told us about
from the AD Council called Agree to Agree to help
reduce whose gun violence?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
What is that? How does it work?
Speaker 10 (23:04):
So we're seeing the effort to reduce gun violence come
from many different areas and with cross functional interest. So
obviously the security and law enforcement has been focused on
a little long time. Technology companies like Hours of alve
has been focused on it for some time, but we're
seeing others get involved. So Northwell Hospitals are the largest
(23:25):
hospital in New York. They have since twenty twenty had
a Center for Gun Violence Prevention. Mike Dowling, who's the CEO,
has been pushing gun violence as a public health issue
or epidemic and that's really brought a group of healthcare
professionals and public policy people together. One of the outgrowths
of that is the AD Council. The AD Council we
(23:47):
might remember did the Smokey the bear as way back
when and keep America Beautiful and seatbelt safety. So they
find societal issues and put a nonpartisan approach to it.
And the most free one that I'm starting to get
involved with is.
Speaker 11 (24:02):
Agree to Agree.
Speaker 10 (24:03):
So Agree to Agree is specifically around trying to reduce
gun violence. They have a few different pillars that they've got,
but it's a four or five year program to bring
a spotlight on this and help bend the curve down
on gun violence.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
And ENIL obviously you know this. Agree to Agree is
an informational campaign. Is there more technology to be had
out there that could also curb gun violence?
Speaker 10 (24:32):
So there is there a big focus of Agree to Agree.
In others is safe storage of firearms at home and
it's a very basic technology.
Speaker 12 (24:40):
It's locks.
Speaker 11 (24:41):
There's different ways to do it.
Speaker 10 (24:42):
There's trigger locks that can be put on firearms. Is
actually taking the firearm and putting it into a gun safe,
and there's some more advanced approaches which are starting to
look at biometrics. So essentially the firearm is imprinted with
your biometrics and so the owner is the only one
that can fire the firearm. It's taking technology out of
(25:03):
some of the venues and putting them into the houses
and the other places to try to have based storage
and safe use of firearms.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Wow, really fascinating stuff and we want to thank you
so much for being a part of the New England
Business Report this morning. All right, still coming your way.
It's that time of year. Friend, Snowport is back in
the seaport. We're going to get an update on what
we can expect this year. Coming up in the next
half hour. This is the New England Business Report, Kim
(25:35):
and Joe.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
We'll explore more business news that impacts our New England
economy when they return.
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Speaker 4 (27:44):
And welcome back to the new ENGO Business Support.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
On this Sunday morning, the November the ninth, it would
be uh taking a look at some other business headlines
that you may or may not have seen or missed
this particular week. And you know, Kim, this topic is
something that we spend tons and tons of time on
over the past couple of years. But then I don't
know In my mind, it was kind of like quietly
didn't didn't get a lot of attention.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I thought it have been settled.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Actually yeah, And here's the headline, folks, Nantucket broadly legalizes
short term rentals and special town meeting vote, ending a
year's long dispute. I'm looking at an article in the
Boston Globe written by John Element. It was a town
meeting last Tuesday night, so just about a week ago, folks,
ending a year's long dispute. Both supporters and opponents saw
(28:31):
this critical, you know, to the island's economic future. I
guess the proposal was known as Article one. It was
approved by seventy one percent of the voters, clearing the
two thirds majority required by town rules. And so this
basically restores the right of owners to rent their properties
to summer visitors, a right that was under a legal
(28:53):
crop cloud since a land court judge ruled last year
that the practice.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Violated town zoning. And again I'm looking at a Globe
article here, But.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
That's what's in for it, sure is what you are
sort of trying to avoid was all of these companies
coming in and foreign entities in buying up all these
houses and then just using them as rental properties, you know,
and certainly that kind of thing is happening, but there's
also a lot of people who own those homes who
use them as a second income until they're ready to
(29:22):
use them full time. So you know, you can see
where this was a real issue for them.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, well that's what the opponents say, Kim, exactly. They
say this opens the door to you know, turning you know,
every property on the island into a mini hotel. And
is that what you really want if you're a Nantucket homeowner.
But at the same time, you don't want to be
restricted if you spend millions out of property.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Uncertain times when it comes to the economy of left
business owners jittery, and I think that's probably a light statement.
The latest Business Confidence Index has been released by the
Associated Industries of Massachusetts, better known to many people as
AIM and Aims Executive vice president of Public Affairs and Communication,
Chris Garin, he's joining us now to talk a little
(30:08):
bit about the Business Confidence Index. Chris, it's disturbing. It's
the lowest that it's been since COVID.
Speaker 11 (30:16):
First of all, Hello, the index has been in pessimistic
territory on our scale for the past eight months, and
the last time you're correct to say that, the last
time that employers have been pessimistic for that long a
period of time was during the COVID pandemic. So it dropped.
(30:40):
We operate on a one hundred point scale when we
survey employers, and anything below fifty qualifies as pessimistic, and
the scale slid down below fifty in March and it's
been there ever since, dropped down another point in October
to forty six point five.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Chris, put some clothes on this for us, if you will.
I mean, what does that mean, you know, to take
us through this number of forty six, What it means
what's going on out there?
Speaker 11 (31:08):
Well, confidence is really important because confident employers expand, Confident
employers hire people, Confident employers take risks to start new businesses.
And conversely, when employers are feeling a little skittish about
the economy, they may postpone a big order. They may decide, well,
(31:34):
I'm not going to put that addition on the plant,
maybe until next year. So it really determines in a
lot of ways the pace of commerces. We look forward
and right now what we're hearing a lot from employers
throughout Massachusetts. Really across all industries is my customers are
(31:55):
really uncertain. They're kind of playing it safe, and they're
putting off major decisions. And you put off major decisions
for long enough and the economy starts to slow down.
And that's what I think we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, you said it's across all industries, but is it
across all sizes of industry as well, or is it
hitting you know, one area a little bit tougher than others.
Speaker 11 (32:18):
Really really does vary. We're seeing it in the larger
companies particularly. It's been well documented in the life sciences field,
in the technology fields where a lot of the federal
support has been either up in the air or withdrawn.
But we're also seeing it a lot from smaller companies.
So the sandwich shop right around the corner from the
(32:41):
big biotech company is feeling the effects as well. And
a lot of you know, in Massachusetts, we have a
lot of smaller manufacturers, third tier suppliers, and as government
contracts are kind of thrown into question, that affects them
as well. Throw in continued uncertainty about you know, where
(33:03):
tariffs are going to land, if they're going to land
and immigration policy, and you've got you've got a whole
lot of uncertainty there, and we're seeing that reflected in
the confidence numbers.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Talking with Chris Garon, of course, he's the executive vice
president of Public, THEIRS and Communications for the Associated Industries
of Massachusetts also known as aim BCI is out and
nobody's smiling. I got but you know, Chris, looking at
your notes here, historically, I mean, we're at forty six five,
I guess, but historically that's far from the worst number
(33:38):
that we saw in two thousand and nine. That's correct,
thirty three point three.
Speaker 11 (33:44):
No surprise there that the lowest, the lowest readings that
we've seen were during the Great Recession. It's interesting to know,
Joe that will while employers are, while they're attitudes are
in pessimistic territory, they're not really deep in pessimistic territory.
(34:05):
They've been kind of just lurking below that fifty mark,
which is kind of the magin on line. So it
kind of reflects the outlook and the overall economy. It's
really on the one hand and on the other hand
type of economy where a lot of the numbers look good,
(34:27):
but employers aren't necessarily feeling good about it, and I
think that kind of reflects how the consumer economy is
running as well. If you look at all the economic numbers,
at least the ones that are still coming out, you know,
the economy looks pretty solid. But if you talk to
people at the grocery store, at the hardware store, of
that kind of thing, people see, I have that sense
(34:49):
of unease, and I think we're seeing that duplicated with employers.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
We have to kind of keep this in perspective too,
because I'm reading here that the historic high sixty eight
point five five that was back in ninety seven, ninety eight,
So you know, we don't see one hundred. You know,
our business owners are always there's always a certain level
of I guess being cautious. That's what I want to say.
Speaker 11 (35:15):
They are by nature, they are by nature circumspect. So
generally the number would would end to reside between forty
and sixty.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Yeah, Chris, let me ask you about comparing the confidence
level here in Massachusetts to the rest of the country.
Do you know where we fare.
Speaker 11 (35:36):
The AIM survey is actually a pretty unique instrument. I know,
the Purchasing Management Index has been more or less generally
reflecting the same patterns of somewhat depressed confidence among employers,
but it's tough to get a gauge. Our sense is
(36:00):
that Massachusetts has some unique challenges, again given the things
that drive our economy, the industries that drive our economy,
and the fact that many of those are kind of
at risk nationally, and many of those, frankly, are very
dependent upon federal funding. So I think that may be
(36:23):
contributing to making Massachusetts employers maybe a little a little
more uncertain than their colleagues are around the country.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Chris, is there any good news?
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I mean, and I know just from what you said
earlier that you know, forty six point five is a
far cry from thirty three point three, So, in other words,
we're just below the line.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
But I guess I ask you where is the good news?
Speaker 11 (36:46):
The good news is that, frankly, the so called experts
have been predicting a recession for the last two and
a half years, and frankly, it hasn't materialized. There were
more predictions of kind of an economic cataclysm after the
tariffs you know, were announced, in whatever form they were announced,
(37:09):
And while while it has created this pall of uncertainty.
The floor has not fallen out on the economy. So
I think the good news is that Massachusetts still has
a lot of really viable economic assets, and I think
those economic assets ultimately will help the help the commonwealth
(37:30):
get through, you know, whatever political machinations happened to go on.
So I think that the long term, Massachusetts is positioned well,
just as it has been for the last couple of decades.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Chris Garon, always great to have you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 11 (37:45):
Thank you very much, Kim.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
You know, of course, twenty twenty five is a drawing
to a close, so we wanted to find out how
the tourism industry fared this year and what we're looking
forward to next year in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
For that, we bring in Dave O'Donnell.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
He's a vice president of strategic Communications for the Greater
Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, which of course is now
known as Meet Boston.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Dave, Welcome to the program. Twenty five is slowly slipping away.
How do we do it?
Speaker 12 (38:17):
Sure is, but we've got a really exciting holiday season
on deck here and winter season as well. It will
be a great way for this season to culminate for
the year to culminate. Thank you for having me. It's
been a strong year. You know, there's been various aspects
of the visitor economy that have you know, at different
levels or degrees of pace, recovered over the past few years.
And this is a year where we essentially have kind
(38:39):
of fully recovered from some of the challenges of the
last several years. Yes, there's some issues internationally. Yes there's
some issues with you know, currency change and economic and
ballansies here and there. But for the most part, it's
been a great year. We see our hotel numbers back
to where they were pre pandemic, which is the strongest
in the indication of a thriving travel pards in the economy.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
That's fantastic. Let's talk about the holiday season and what
you guys, I mean, I know, twenty twenty five slipping away,
but the holiday season's got to be a really important
part of it.
Speaker 12 (39:11):
It is, it is, and you know, it's a great
way for us to create momentum leading into the first
quarter of twenty six, right. You know, the colder months
are traditionally, you know, a period where the visitor economy
slows a little bit. You know, you see, you know,
hotel numbers and ocupancy drop down into the seventies and sixties.
But if we can keep it strong through November and
(39:32):
December and the holiday season and the programming we have,
and there's so much iconic programming that we do have,
it's just a tremendous way for us to kind of
close the year, you know, and there's there's so many
traditional things that we have, you know, and it's it's
more than just the programming, although that's wonderful, you know,
with holiday pops, Nutcracker, Urban Nutcracker, black activity, all this
great stuff, but it's the ongoing experiences, you know that
(39:55):
the holiday lights, the tree lighting, the ice skating, just
we feel like compelling reasons for you know, residents to
stay longer in the city and maybe the day over
night and also should induce overnight visitations, you know, folks
in the region and then in the whole Northeast quarter
really of the States to coming to Boston to kind
of explore for two three days what there is to
(40:16):
see and do. There's of course, lots going on throughout
the holiday in terms of both holiday markets, you know,
cultural events, boarding events. You know, our great culinary scene,
which is about to get a boost with some mischel
and recognition. So we're really looking to ride this way
over the next six weeks right into the new year.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Dave o'donald's our guest vice president at Meet Boston talking
about tourism industry here, how do you a balance between
the domestic visitors and the international visitors and who are
you more focused on?
Speaker 4 (40:48):
And yeah, let's just start there.
Speaker 12 (40:53):
Well, it's it always is a balance, right. You know,
international visitors are so important because they they stay longer here,
they spend more money. You know, they might only make
us you know, nine ten percent of our overall visitor volume,
but they contribute more than fifteen percent to visitors spending
as it relates to spending volume. That said, you know,
(41:14):
the vast majority of our visitor audience is indeed the Northeast.
You know, you're talking about even visitors that technically or
Massachusetts residents, New England residents, and again through through the
Northeast quarter. You know, so folks coming in from DC, Philly,
New York. The Hartford market is a growing market for us.
So we try to be balanced, right, We try to
(41:35):
always make sure the messaging is resonating, you know, within
our region because we appreciate that a lot of those
folks technically are visitors because they're coming from over fifty
miles or staying overnight. But at the same time, it's
really important for us to grow a messaging domestically throughout
the country, right And for that reason, you know, we
have Incas we worked with that spread that word and
(41:55):
also in Canada as well. Right, we're really trying to
rebound and renew some of the really ship, particularly with
in Eastern Canada. And there are events that are happening
about the holiday season. You know, we all know about
the tree for Boston that comes to Nova Scotia and
the tree lighting middle start of this year on December fourth.
That is a key international market for US, right, it's
(42:16):
always our strongest international market, Canada, and we've seen it
dip of course in terms of the forecast for twenty
twenty five differ significantly. Even so at Meet Boston, you know,
we're really doing our best and we want the holiday
season to be something that stands out to make sure
that we're telling our story, you know, not only regionally
and domestically, but to make sure that Canadian audience, particularly
(42:37):
that Eastern Canada audience is hearing it. And then all
of our other traditional markets, you know, internationally, particularly those
of of you know, Western Europe. You know, we have
agencies in Germany, France, UK Ireland that really do find
you know, holiday seasons in Boston magical, even though they
have you know, their own brand in those other countries.
(42:57):
So it's really trying to balance it. It makes sure
that we're breading a message and offering compelling itineraries and
reasons to come to Boston and conveying that message through
whatever channel makes the most sense for that market, you know,
whether it's the domestic market or international.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
So, Dave, let's look forward if we could, to twenty
twenty six, because obviously this is a big, you know,
anniversary year for the nation and a lot of people
will come to Boston. Yeah, so this is no doubt
going to be a big year for the city.
Speaker 12 (43:27):
Correct, it will be, and and you know, especially again
on an international front, these are these are global events, right,
So when you look at specifically those five six weeks
from Junior to Junior to July where we have World
Cup intersecting with the fiftieth interseacting with Sale Boston. You
literally have the last World Cup match happening and the
(43:50):
day after, you know, the Sale Boston Plate of Sale
coming into Boston, Boston Harbor. It's going to be it's
all kind of suspend this right, and again they are
all events that in nature are going to have an
international deeal you know, specifically PIFA in the fall. Ships
you're talking about over one hundred ships from a variety
of countries. There could be a way in which will
(44:12):
cut matches dovetail symbolically with ships that are coming in.
You know, who knows, we might have matches here in
June and July that you know are our nations that
are also going to have ships that come in. And
then for the fourth you know, it's of course a
great domestic commemoration and celebration. But again we have we
(44:32):
have four international markets, key traditional overseas markets that are
very intrigued by interested in the story of America at
at semi quint centennial. You know, so that includes nations
like Canada and UK, Ireland, France that played an integral
role in the founding of the country. Anyways, they want
to share in that. So yeah, well a lot of
(44:52):
it is concentrated in that five six weeks. We're really
looking to showcase Boston globally throughout all of twenty six,
leveraging those key moments of June and July. But to
make sure it's something that resonates and has a link
a longer runway than just those six weeks.
Speaker 3 (45:09):
Dave, how do you reach that visitor? Let's just maybe
we'll use Canada for an example. What is successful outreach
and how does that look is at a digital campaign?
What is it and how do you know it works?
Speaker 12 (45:21):
It can be a number of things. So I mean Boston.
You know, when we work in a specific international market
like Canada, it's primarily pr earned media and travel trade. Right.
We don't do as much direct consumer marketing in international markets.
It's more about trying to drive earn media stories, you know,
host writers, bloggers, editors, influencers. At the same time, make
(45:42):
sure that we're educating the travel trade, you know, travel
agency co operators, airlines about what products are new in
Boston and what we think create really intriguing itineraries and
why people should visit Boston. So we work in conjunction
with our international agencies and these dedicated markets to make
sure that that story and then we very carefully track
(46:03):
international travel trends and data. You know, it's data we
get through Masspoort, it's data we get through industry leaders
like Tours and Economics and long Wind International. We try
to make sure that our messaging is conveying and converting, right,
So we work mostly with our in market representatives and
ambassadors in those places. But it's also incumbent upon us
to go have a presence there, right, you know. So
(46:23):
for example, a couple of months ago, we hosted an
event in Toronto that was actually a ball game between
the Socks and Blue Jays, which turned out to be
very important call game at the end of the year.
But it's just sharing our messaging and sharing our brand
with the folks that are the key way to convey
the message to the Canadian consumer audience.
Speaker 4 (46:40):
All right. He's a Dave O'Donnell.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
He's the vice president of Strategic Communications for the Greater
Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, also known as Meat Boston.
Up next time to talk about the holidays in Boston
at the Seaport.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
You are listening to the New England Business Report on
the Voice of Boston w R Ko, Si, Sa, Joe
and Kim.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
We'll be right back.
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Speaker 5 (48:03):
Are you a brother or sister of one of Greater
Boston's local trade unions and finally thinking about getting ready
to hang up your tools after thirty five years of
working your tailoff. Congratulations, you worked hard to build your
retirement nest egg. But now what Let me help you
break through the nonsense and financial speak so we can
get to the questions that are important to you. As
you know, nothing gets built without a set of plans,
(48:24):
and neither will your financial future. My name is Mike Marshall,
President and CEO of Marshall Wealth Management and creator of
the Marshall Plan, a comprehensive, customized plan that will help
you answer important questions in all seven key areas. You
don't have to do it alone. There is no cost
or obligation. Call us at eight five seven three four
two ten thirty. That's eight five seven three four two
(48:47):
ten thirty. Well check us out online at Marshallwealth dot
Com Marshall with two ls Marshallwealth dot Com.
Speaker 9 (48:54):
Advisory services offered to Capital Analysts or Linkeln Investment Registered
Investment advisors. Securities offered through Lincoln Investment Broker Dealer Member
FINRA SIP. Lincoln Investment dot Com, Marshall Wealth Management and
the above firms are independent and not affiliated.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Hi everybody, I'm Kim Kerrigan.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
And I'm Joe Shortsley. If you want to be part
of the New England Business Report, sponsorships are still available.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
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Speaker 3 (49:20):
That's Any Business Radio all one word at gmail dot
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Speaker 1 (49:34):
The New England Business Report on w RKO is brought
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Speaker 2 (49:45):
Welcome back, everybody. Well guess what it's back snowboard in
the sport. You know, it's quickly become a festive holiday
tradition in Boston for shopping, eating, drinking and just general merriment. Joe,
I'm sure are you going make a little Mary there?
Speaker 13 (50:02):
Right?
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Yeah, Well, it's a signal that the holiday season is
upon us. Absolutely put the category like it or not,
it's here. But that's a great take. It's a great take.
And when you get there, you know, you feel very festive,
and you know it's very clear that the holidays or
Christmas has arrived in Boston.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
I want you to know that I had mulled wine
there last year. Muled wine mauled like he did, you know,
like the Christmas carol? You know, here to tell us
all about. This year's Seaport Snowport is Emily So because
she is the Associate director of Community and Partnership at
(50:42):
WS Development. Emily so great to have you with us
each year. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Speaker 11 (50:48):
It does.
Speaker 13 (50:49):
We're so proud to be back for year five of
the Snowpork Holiday Market, presented by Constant Contact. And that's
just one of the many activities we have in our
bustling Seaport neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
This Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 4 (51:02):
Wow. So what are the numbers? What do it look like?
Speaker 3 (51:05):
I understand that you have one hundred and twenty five
independently owned vendors.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
What will the crowds be like there?
Speaker 13 (51:12):
Yeah, we have over one hundred and twenty five small,
locally owned businesses at the holiday market. We're super proud
to support the local business community here in Boston and
New England. And then this season we anticipate seeing over
a million visitors come through in the seven weeks that
we're operational. So we're open through December twenty eighth, just
closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas days. But we're so thrilled
(51:35):
to be back supporting all of these small businesses and
spreading holidays here this season.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
You know, the market is certainly a big part of it,
but there's other things going on there too, like the
skating rink and the tree lot. Tell us about that.
Speaker 13 (51:48):
Yeah, there's something for everyone down here in Seaport. Our
Snowport Curling Lanes, brought to you by Mass General Brigham
Health Plan. Return right on Harbor Way. You can keep
walking down Harbor Way and you'll find Island Creek Oysters
Raw Bar, which will be open now for the winter season.
A little a prey ski theme happening there. Bowlers will
open later this month with iceless skating and some courts
(52:12):
for racket sports. We also have our Snowport Tree Market
at ninety nine Autumn Lane for all your fresh tree needs.
They deliver, they clean up, one stop shop for all
your holiday decore. And of course, our neighborhood mascot, Betty
the Yetty, graces us with her presence from the Himalayan Mountains.
She's back at Betty's Blizzard Bluff over at the super
(52:35):
Et Courtyard.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
Give us a little bit of the history of Snowpoort
and are we bigger this year than ever before? I mean,
everybody knows the business climate is a little bit iffy
as of recent So take us through the history of snowpoart.
Speaker 13 (52:50):
Yeah, Snowport launched back in twenty nineteen. That was my
first year with the company, so we've seen it from
start to today, and it's incredible how we've grown. Every
year we find a way to add something else, to
add something new, and of course the Seaport neighborhood is
just growing so rapidly, with new businesses opening every day,
it feels like, and so just to have so many
(53:12):
wonderful businesses, restaurants, bars in the area to get involved
with the Snowport too, has been really exciting to see.
We're really thrilled to do a Seaport Holiday Stroll this
winter on Saturday, December thirteenth, so you'll be able to
stroll all the holiday businesses and just have extra festive
holiday cheers. They'll be specials and different offers that day
(53:34):
at the participating businesses as well to support the busiest
retail time of the year.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Yeah, lots of general making. Mary As I like to say,
I don't know if this has been available always, maybe
it hasn't. I apologize, but Joe and I were talking
a little bit earlier in the show about the fact
that you can buy tickets and their time tickets, So
explain that if you will.
Speaker 13 (53:56):
Yeah. So, there's been such a wonderful response to the
holiday market, lots of folks visiting on weekends. Last year
we launched what we call timed entry reservations. So while
we offer free general admission to the market seven days
a week, there's always a free option to enter for
those folks who want to plan their visit in advance.
You can go download the Seaport Insider app and book
(54:19):
a timed entry ticket. So that'll allow you to know
that you're getting into the holiday market in a specific
thirty minute window. We saw great success last year, so
many happy families, Especially if you're visiting from the urbs
or outside of Boston. You know when you're going to
be able to enter the market. You get to enjoy
the market and then go explore and enjoy the rest
(54:39):
of the neighborhood.
Speaker 4 (54:40):
Well, what's going on there?
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Fact that you might need a ticket, Emily, what's the
flip side here?
Speaker 13 (54:45):
Just because we have so many people who want to
visit the market, So on the weekends when folks are
off of work or have family visiting for the weekend.
It's just it's very busy. We have a capacity for
the market, so this helps us manage that flow. If
you don't buy a ticket, you can just join the
general admission line and we'll also get you in as
quickly as we can.
Speaker 2 (55:05):
Talk to us a little bit about some of the vendors.
I think it caught my attention that there are a
lot of female owned, women owned businesses that are involved.
Speaker 13 (55:14):
Yes, of the one hundred and twenty five plus vendors
that we have at the market, eighty eight percent identifies
either bypop and or female owned. A big focus of
the market is supporting minority owned businesses and giving them
this incredible platform to be able to meet so many
great customers this holiday season. So when we review all
(55:36):
the applications for the holiday market, we love to be
able to highlight those businesses who might not otherwise have
had a chance to participate in an event like this.
Speaker 3 (55:44):
Emillly, what's success When we get to the end of
December here and you look down at your desk, what's success.
Speaker 13 (55:50):
Success is knowing that we had over a million visitors
come and enjoy the market and make their holiday memories here.
There can be so much happening in the world around
us US, and while the holidays can be really crazy
and stressful, I think just to be able to have
those moments to also pause to look around you, to
make a connection with a small business owner, to know
(56:11):
that you're supporting their business, their dreams, and then being
able to get something to your family and friends and
those who hold deer is really really powerful and we're
so proud to support that right here in support and Emily.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
This is maybe something that you don't love talking about,
but I think it's imperative for an event like this.
Of course, this is based off of European markets. I
believe it was one in a specific market right that
this was based off of. And obviously security has to
be an issue, So just talk a little bit, if
you will, about security and maybe if I'm coming to
(56:43):
the market, what I might need to know.
Speaker 13 (56:45):
Yes, we do model the markets off of the outdoor
European style markets that you see all over Europe, and
we're thrilled to be able to bring that to Boston.
We do take security very very seriously. We have security
at all enter to the market, cameras throughout the market,
and we work super closely with our local law enforcement
officials just to make sure everyone is safe this holiday season.
(57:09):
So we encourage you to always be aware of your
surroundings and we look forward to welcoming you to the neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Fantastic Emily, thanks so much for being part of the
show this morning. And a quick reminder, Snowboard will be
open daily through December the twenty eight, with the exception
of Thanksgiving and Christmas Day and for times you can
check their website.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
All right, Kim, time to talk about next week's show,
and this is kind of fun. There's going to be
a new restaurant in the town of Weston that will
serve alcohol now public restaurants haven't been able to do
that in over one hundred years. It's at the Josiah
Smith Tavern who's going to be renovated, and the guy
behind is Brian Pekini, who owns, of course, Boston Chops. Well, anyway,
(57:48):
Kim and I will be talking to him about his
plan for twenty six. That's on the new Wingo Business
Reports Sunday morning on WRKO. The Voice of Boston AM six'
eighty
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