Oyhut Bay, A Seaside Village

Reaching Out: Intentional Inclusion

Oyhut Bay is a new Traditional Neighborhood Design resort community in the established vacation town of Ocean Shores, Washington. Ocean Shores has an established retail and hospitality community, an insular business community, and a great deal of “skepticism” for anything “new” or from the “outside”.

We knew that much of our marketing success in the first two years could come from local referrals and by creating a “buzz” among the residents, business, and civic leaders.

One of our most simple strategies to overcome the skepticism is to offer a large “WELCOME” to the existing community.

The first building on the site is our Welcome Center, so we made sure it had a nicely sized room to host small to medium sized gatherings. From there, we are staging an ongoing campaign of getting involved with local influentials and making our site and our room available to as many groups as possible.

Now, as we enter our second year, we have a completed condominium building, beach homes and rentals, and some new businesses up and running, and we’re taking our invitation one step further by sponsoring a Christmas Street with holiday lighting as a local attraction for residents and businesses, as well as a fundraiser for a local cause.