You will (or more about it, at least). There is a six-figure marketing drive on to get both locals and tourists to spend some time along the waterfront and the Rose Kennedy Greenway this summer. The odds are already on the side of those businesses, nonprofits and government agencies behind the drive: 350,000 cruise-ship passengers are expected to disembark in the Harbor this year; another 1.5 million will board Boston Harbor Cruises, one of three firms for downtown cruises; the USS Constitution and its adjoining museum will attract 800,000 visitors; and restaurants along the waterfront are hopping nightly anyway. Heck, things are so busy along the waterfront it's got a new neighborhood name!
It's all about showing what the Big Dig wrought. And about what the executive director of the Boston Harbor Association calls the "new Boston." And—you guessed it—about tech. Per Joseph P. Khan in The Globe:
Enter LevelUp, a Boston technology company focusing on mobile payments. LevelUp’s free, downloadable payment service allows users to find merchants online, using their smartphones, and then pay with their phones, without cash or credit card. They can also accumulate credits redeemable for future purchases. For merchants, the transaction fees are lower than what credit card companies charge, and the app makes these merchants more visible to potential customers. According to LevelUp director Christian Sann, the hope is to enlist at least 150 merchants in the program, among them the 17 food trucks already licensed to operate in the waterfront-Greenway area.
How appropriate then that this particular economic drive is being driven by the very sector that's supposed to be driving the whole city. Very meta. We like it.
· All-Out Effort to Get People to Waterfront This Summer [Globe]
· Boston's Tech Sector and Real Estate: What If, Part II? [Curbed Boston]