This is a photo I took this week inside the Walmart store in Ellsworth, Maine. It is a retail scene that seems pretty familiar in the area, given the number of stores that sell merchandise with "Acadia" or "Bar Harbor" emblazoned on them. Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park get millions of tourists each summer who come to the Mount Desert Island region to enjoy its rugged, seaside scenery. A fair number of those tourists stop in the Ellsworth Walmart on their way to or from Bar Harbor.
But take a closer look at the picture mounted above the sweatshirts. If you have a hard time making it out, check out this zoomed-in version:
Looks nice, doesn't it? The boats tied up in the marina create a relaxing, leisurely atmosphere. The sky in the background has the soothing tones of a sunset (or maybe a sunrise). The lights and building across the water have an inviting, welcoming feel. And that lighthouse looks downright majestic, like a fortified tower in a Hollywood movie.
But there's a problem. A big problem. It's the kind of thing that people and local officials in Bar Harbor, which is only 20 miles from Ellsworth, are likely to take a keen interest in, given the great care they take in protecting the picturesque appearance and visual character of their town, which is Maine's top tourist destination.
Not that the photo shows anything unpleasant. It's just that the scene depicted in the photo is nowhere near Bar Harbor. What the photo actually shows is a lighthouse and marina more than 1,200 miles away in the lovely seaside resort community of Hilton Head, South Carolina.
It took me maybe half a second once I gave the the photo a serious look to realize it was not Bar Harbor at all. There is no lighthouse on the Bar Harbor waterfront, for one thing, and no palm trees anywhere outside in the state of Maine.
Though I have been to Hilton Head, I did not immediately recognize the scene shown in the photo. I had to go home and Google "red and white striped lighthouse" for about two minutes before I had the proper ID. Not surprisingly, there are lots of photos online similar to the one above, even postcards with "Hilton Head" printed on them in large type. For example:
Has that person never made the half-hour trip down the road to one of the most scenic places in New England? Did they just not notice? Did they just not care enough, or maybe were too timid to say anything? Has no one approached store management to ask about it? It's all very weird.
And it is slightly off-putting that Walmart would be so oblivious or indifferent to the serious marketing efforts being made daily just down the road by the many people involved in the tourist industry, which is the biggest in the state - or, for that matter, to the tourism marketing professionals in South Carolina who want to lure vacationers to Hilton Head. Tourist communities are known to be very careful about maintaining their images as alluring destinations, and properly identifying popular attractions as being in or near their towns is a big part of those efforts.
I know this kind of thing matters to business owners in Bar Harbor, especially the relatively large number that cater to the tourist industry (many of whom, incidentally, shop at the Ellsworth Walmart). You would think that if Walmart also wants to sell stuff to those same tourists, and wants to keep local tourism business owners as customers, it be would be more attentive to the multi-hundred-million-dollar tourism mecca 20 miles away that is the whole reason why those tourists are driving by their store in the first place.
That said, I cannot believe the photo was misidentified on purpose, and such a nondescript placard is not likely to have any affect, good or bad, on the local tourism industry. But accuracy is nice. And if Walmart were to quickly fix the mistake, thereby demonstrating that it is an earnest and responsive part of the local community where it does business, it would be almost just as good.
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