COVER STORY

By mid-morning on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2006, Ocean Boulevard was jammed with patrons and vendors for the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. Andrew Moore file photo

Running a seasonal business is not for those easily rattled by factors out of their control such as weather, changing consumer spending habits, the weather, evolving demographic shifts, and, yes, the weather.

Consider Dick Samuels, the founder of Water Country in Portsmouth, which is open for less than three months every year, draws as many as 300,000 water lovers annually and employs around 500 seasonal workers.

"So much depends on the weather," Samuels said recently at the company offices off of Route 1. "If it's cold and rainy, that is not good for business." Like any business executive who survives the roller coaster of a volatile economy, Samuels remembers the good and bad seasons. In particular, he remembers a perfect summer back in the mid-1980s while the business was still young. "It was the endless summer," he said of the season of very few rainy days — and when it did rain, it mostly rained at night.

Samuels' dream of an "endless summer" is shared by surfers and owners of the hundreds and hundreds of Seacoast region summer-based businesses who surface, as if by nature's call, beginning in spring and lasting as long as possible in late summer or early fall. They are, to name just a few, the clam huts, the ice cream stands, the retail shops, miniature golf layouts, restaurants, 9- or 18 hole golf courses, amusement centers, farmer's markets, outdoor theatre or music festivals, and camping grounds.

It's a tough way to make a living but the combination of all these seasonal businesses has led to an important role in the region and state economies of New Hampshire and Maine. These shops and venues employs tens of thousands of workers — many of the them teenagers and college students, along with scores of mostly young international summer-visa only workers — and represent a diversity of consumer experiences from the fun to the tacky to the sublime.

Lobster hats stand out in the crowd at the annual Hampton Beach Seafood Festival Andrew Moore file photo

"Seasonal businesses are the backbone of our economy," said Pat Morgenstern, the membership director of the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce.

"Once they (tourists) are here for one thing, they fall in love with other things," said Alice DeSouza, director of the N.H. Department of Travel and Tourism.

New Hampshire doesn't have any firm statistics about the size of the seasonal economy, said Alice DeSouza, but there is no doubt about its crucial stature. The lack of a state sales tax doesn't hurt the retail sectors in a state sandwiched between two states (Maine and Massachusetts) that do have sale taxes.

Most of the shops, amusement centers, and eateries are still boarded up in late March along Hampton Beach but Morgenstern said more and more businesses are opening up earlier and earlier due to increased early season demand. More importantly, the seasonal community has become marketing savvy in its efforts to stretch the summer season as long as possible through concentrated advertising efforts.

The Seafood Festival in Hampton Beach is a notable example of a good idea that has grown into a major annual event. For almost two decades the Seafood Festival, which takes place the weekend after Labor Day — the traditional summer wrap-up marker — has not only extended the season, Morgenstern explained, but has expanded into Hampton proper.

Dick Samuels, the founder of Portsmouth-based Water Country, says there is no shortage of challenges and opportunities for seasonal businesses such as his. Michael McCord photo

"It's huge," she said of the festival which draws major corporate sponsors and as many as 600 local volunteers to help out with the tens of thousands of local and regional visitors that stream in for the event. "Hotels get booked up a year in advance and food vendors begin calling us earlier every year." In fact, planning for the major choreography of the festival — which includes an estimated 50 food vendors and 80 arts and crafts exhibitors — has become a year-round affair.

Morgenstern said the growth of the Seafood Festival, which often draws tourists who haven't come to the beach during its crowded summer months, has led to more inquires about the region, such as the Kittery retail outlet congregation in Maine or the Strawberry Banke and Prescott Park areas in Portsmouth.

At Water Country, there really is no off-season. During the nine "inactive" months there is extensive infrastructure maintenance, marketing planning and the hiring and training of the next season's staff (for example, in 2007 Samuels estimates as many as 175 new workers will be brought on board). This time is as crucial to the business as the in-season friendly customer service.

Dick Samuels said that it does no good to extend his season because for his water-based business there is a quirky but very real psychological barrier that has yet to be overcome.

"People put their bathing suits away after Labor Day," he said. Water Country has attempted in the past to take advantage of late-summer weekend weather in September but it's never worked. "We've had sunny, 80-degree days with more workers than guests," Samuels lamented. (Another factor all seasonal businesses face is labor: one school starts most of the work force is gone.)

Water Country can't extend the season but it has expanded its capabilities to draw more customers. From a one-attraction, few-acre spot when it first opened in 1984, Water Country has become New England's largest water park with around 20 major attractions spread out over 26 acres and four major food centers. It serves a growing "day tripper" market of families living in the New England region.

"It's evolved step by step," said Samuels about the capital development moves that don't come cheap. For a new small attraction, the cost can go as high as $250,000. For a large attraction, that cost can reach $1 million. But the improvements have led to a growing customer base — on an average day as many 5,000 hit the water slopes — as Water Country has a wide range of "passive and aggressive" water attractions for kids and adults of all ages.

Samuels sold the business in 2000 to one of the nation's largest water park companies and has stayed on to run the business because "I'm having fun." It's an attitude he said the business has banked on for its customers and workers from the beginning. For his workers, it's often a great opportunity to learn responsibility and have a good time in the sun at the same time.

"When I was a kid in college, in the summer I cleaned coal shutes in a power generating plant," he said. "This is a lot more fun."