Businesses get creative to attract summer customers

Amici restuarant in downtown Athens, Ga. is one of the many business looking for creative ways to attract customers.

(Photo by Courtney Smith)

By Alex Mckelvey

As students leave town for summer, small local businesses scramble to develop creative strategies to attract customers.

According to Rod Parks, associate registrar at the University, roughly 4,500 students are enrolled in Maymester classes. This figure is starkly lower than the final count for 2009’s spring enrollment, a whopping 32,968 students.

That is 28, 468 fewer people participating in Athens commerce. This drop in potential patronage does not go unnoticed by local businesses.

“The summertime is drastically slower,” said Derick Thompson, a line cook at the Barberitos near 5 points. “Barberitos appeals to hungry college students with little money.”

Consequently, when college students leave town, Barberitos sees less business.

Downtown restaurants, such as Amici Italian Café, have also noted how the summer affects business. According to Stephanie Mason, an Amici manager, last month’s average weekly revenue was markedly higher than it is has been in May so far.

The last week in April brought in $12,576, while this past week brought in only $8286.

Businesses seem to have no doubt that the drop in revenue is correlated to the student summer exodus.

So, what do Athens businesses do to survive this cyclic depression?

According to Mason, Amici is trying to develop new approaches for attracting customers.

Recently, Amici offered graduates 50 percent off of their meals if they brought in their diploma.

Mason also said Amici’s corporate office is considering launching an “industry percent-off day,” in which employees of other downtown stores can order Amici food at a discounted rate.

“You have to give people who are in town anyway incentive to eat at your store,” Mason said.

Bars are also taking part in guerilla marketing tactics to attract more business. American Tavern is hosting a bikini contest every Wednesday night to attract salivating men and profiteering broads to its establishment.

Vincent Villella, a Tavern employee mentioned that American Tavern is also sending promoters on campaigns to pool parties hosted by Athens housing developments.
“We also pass out fliers at malls in close-by towns like Winder and Jefferson,” Villella added.

On the whole, these are not new trends. Athens businesses have always had to find ways of persuading locals to fill the void left by students that have left town.

Keith Neace, the owner of the downtown Barberitos says the key to summer survival is learning from past data, and recognizing how to cut costs wherever possible.

Neace noted that he uses a different launderer for aprons and rags in the summer, and he cuts labor by scheduling fewer people. He also cuts back on print advertising.

“It’s always going to be slower in the summer,” Neace said. “You just have to recognize what costs are superficial and what costs are needed for survival.”

Apartment complexes financially safe for summer

Although many apartments may be vacant, students still are responsible for rent at the River Mill Apartments in Athens, Ga. (photo by Alex Mckelvey)

By Courtney Smith

Deserted sidewalks, locked classrooms and bountiful parking. The students are away for the summer and the only evidence that the bustling campus community still lives are the faint carbon copies of rent checks paying for empty apartments.

Many students leave Athens for the solace of far-off beaches or time with relatives in the summer. But, regardless of whether the student lives there or not, according to the President of the Athens Apartment Association, most student leases are impossible to break and must be paid in full.

“Student housing is different than the regular apartment style [of management] because we operate on a school year schedule but, apart from that, you are required to pay your entire 12-month lease or else you will default,” the association president and community manager of University Apartments on Riverbend, Wanda Ellis, said.

According to Ellis, many of the residents living in the University Apartments on Riverbend will leave for the first two weeks of summer break and then return to Athens to work or go to school. Others will only live in their Athens apartments on the weekends.

“We don’t have a lot of trouble with students defaulting on their leases because I think they understand that they signed a contract that obligates them to pay, just like if they have a credit card or a car loan,” she said.

Even though she does not have a lot of trouble with students defaulting over the summer, she said that complexes must still insulate themselves from the financial threat and will sometimes work with the tenants to find a compromise.

“Some landlords will set up a payment plan that lets the tenant pay off the debt for a longer period of time or even offer a short-term lease that costs a little more each month but would be cheaper than paying out a lease on an apartment they don’t live in,” she said.

University student Jenna Ziesenhene was able to work out a deal with the River Mill Apartments’ leasing office that allowed her lease to be changed from a three-bedroom apartment rent rate to a lower two-bedroom rate while she and her two roommates were away for the summer.

“We really wanted to just break the lease because none of us are going to be here, but the office told us that if we didn’t pay the rest of the rent, it would hurt our credit scores and our parents’ [credit scores] because they signed some kind of guarantee,” Ziesenhene, an international affairs junior from Bonaire, said.

“So, we decided to just move into the two-bedroom on paper and pay a lower rent, even though none of us, or are things, will be here,” she said.

According to Rivermill Apartments leasing agent Melissa Hill, students can also work with the apartment complex and allow their apartment to be shown to people interested in subleasing.

While offering to show an apartment as a model increases the likelihood that someone will agree to take over the lease, if a sub-leaser is not found, the student will still be forced to pay the rent or else be taken to court for the remaining balance and all court fees.

“It is definitely a lot more expensive for a leaser if a defaulted lease goes to trial because the court fees really add up and they will almost never win and not have to pay,” Hill said. “There are almost no loop-holes that will let someone out of a lease unless they are in the military and get called to duty.”

“If you get called to Iraq, then you can break the lease with a 30-day notice but that is basically the only way it’s possible.”

Edited by Leila Mattimore

Grady College enrollment gets trim in summer

By Jordan Stover

Academic departments at the University of Georgia have had to make an extra effort to fill their Maymester classes this year, and some have even had to cut classes altogether.

Low enrollment numbers in summer classes have been an issue for the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. In order to increase enrollment, the college allowed more students to take classes by waiving prerequisite and permission of the department, or “POD,” requirements.

According to Maria Cooper, a journalism advisor in Grady, the college has had no problem filling required “core” classes for their majors. However, electives, such as multimedia classes, have been harder to fill.

Cooper said that some classes filled up to begin with, but students turned down the class later in the semester after hearing back from internships and study abroad programs.

This was a problem for one UGA student in another college. Julie Yeomans, a senior in the Terry College of Business, had initially signed up for a Maymester class, but had to turn it down for an internship.

“It’s hard to make summer plans when companies don’t tell you about internships until late in the semester,” Yeomans said. “I would have loved to take a class to lighten my load for next year, but I couldn’t turn down a paid internship.”

According to Cooper, the sluggish economy has put a financial strain on the students and thus the college.

“It’s hard to fill summer classes late in the semester because students have a hard time deciding on short notice to live in Athens for the summer,” Cooper said. “Financially a lot of students can’t do it.”

She said that the dean of Grady wants to make sure every summer class that they are offering is full.

Cooper said that the telecommunications department in Grady had to cut a Maymester class this year because not enough students had enrolled in the course.

“It was a shame that we had to cut that class,” said Cooper. “One of the department’s best professors was scheduled to teach it, but we just didn’t have enough students enrolled to offer it.”

Grady was not the only college on UGA’s campus that had to cut summer classes this year. The Romance Language department cut classes in Italian and Portuguese for the summer semesters.

Despite the struggles that these departments have had filling their classes, UGA’s Associate Registrar Rodney Parks said that overall summer enrollment is not down significantly. Current Maymester enrollment is at 4,100 students, and according to Parks that number will fluctuate throughout the summer.

“Our summer enrollment tends to remain pretty stable,” Parks said. “I don’t have the total numbers for this summer yet, but I would think it would be about the same as last year.”

Edited by Leila Mattimore