These involved with selling tourism in St. Joseph County are taking steps to make sure that accessible cash is being devoted in the appropriate areas to draw in a single day guests.
The St. Joseph County Lodge-Motel Tax Board and Go to South Bend/Mishawaka have launched a research that can get underway in earnest Feb. 27 and can finally make suggestions on tourism spending over the following 10 years.
CSL Worldwide, a agency that gives planning and advisory companies for sports activities, venues, leisure and tourism, will likely be paid $151,000 to conduct conferences with a variety of about 140 neighborhood stakeholders and finally produce a plan this summer time.
Past the conferences with stakeholders, your entire neighborhood additionally could have the chance to share their tourism concepts through a web based questionnaire that will likely be accessible in March, Go to South Bend/Mishawaka Government Director Jeff Jarnecke mentioned.
The Lodge-Motel Tax Board disburses about $9.6 million a yr that’s generated from the 8% tax that guests pay after they’re spending an evening in a resort or a rental by Airbnb or Vrbo.
Of the overall, or roughly $1.2 million is split evenly between Potawatomi Zoo and the Morris Performing Arts Middle for upgrades to each venues. Roughly the identical quantity goes to the Mishawaka Fieldhouse mission, which is predicted to open this summer time close to Juday Creek north of Douglas Highway.
Summer season completion:Mishawaka Fieldhouse on schedule to alter the athletic and financial panorama regionally
One other $1.2 million of the tax is used on the discretion of the Lodge-Motel Tax Board and the tourism group to offer occasional assist for tasks such because the dinosaur museum and chocolate manufacturing unit advanced that Mark Tarner, president of the South Bend Chocolate Co., plans to open within the coming months close to the airport.
Jarnecke mentioned the remaining roughly $6 million a yr is used to assist the efforts of Go to South Bend/Mishawaka to advertise tourism within the space and supply a minimum of $2 million a yr to offset the price of Century Middle in downtown South Bend.
Apart from amassing concepts from the neighborhood, CSL additionally will have a look at the effectiveness of present spending relating to selling tourism and benchmark the realm towards different similar-sized communities.
“We’d like some strategic considering from a cross part of the neighborhood to the best way to get our greatest return on tourism investments,” mentioned John Anthony, who serves as president of the Tax Board and operates Anthony Journey. “We’ve by no means had the chance to take a position like this earlier than. So, let’s be good and strategic.”
Coming attraction:Mark Tarner’s dinosaur and chocolate advanced close to the South Bend airport heading in the right direction
After hitting a report 980,000 room nights in 2022, in a single day stays dropped 7% to 911,000 in 2023, Jarnecke mentioned, whereas declaring that your entire state was down 1% in 2023 and surrounding counties have been down much more than St. Joseph County.
Previous to the pandemic in 2019, the county had 967,000 in a single day stays, so tourism officers wish to guarantee that future tourism spending is geared toward maximizing in a single day stays as a result of guests spent an estimated $1.2 billion right here in 2023, Jarnecke mentioned.
The long-range plan is the primary ever for the county’s tourism effort, however the group didn’t get pleasure from the extra cash from a 2-percentage-point increase within the mattress tax till October 2021.
In 2022, it made its first award of $1 million to assist the Ice Field Skating Rink on a multi-million-dollar mission to develop a 3rd sheet of ice and make different upgrades to the advanced on the south facet of South Bend.
Because the opening of the Compton Household Ice Enviornment on the College of Notre Dame, the realm has been profitable in attracting youth hockey tournaments from throughout the nation, leading to appreciable room nights and customer spending within the winter months, when enterprise sometimes falls off.
“Having a fifth ice rink would make the realm actually stand out,” Jarnecke mentioned, including that youth hockey is already by far the realm’s main youth sports activities success producing greater than 26,000 room nights in 2023 alone.
And with the addition of the $38 million Mishawaka Fieldhouse this summer time, a further 30 to 40 tournaments might come to the realm as a result of the ability will embody 10 multi-use indoor courts for basketball or volleyball, two turf fields and a pickleball court docket, in accordance with officers.
John Pfair, a long-time developer who now focuses totally on Holladay Hospitality Group motels, is serving on the research steering committee and hopes the mission can determine the perfect locations to take a position assets that produce in a single day stays.
“The pandemic hit and the whole lot modified,” he mentioned. “Enterprise site visitors is down in every single place, and leisure has not made up for the hole.”
Pfair mentioned he’s most enthused concerning the prospects of the chocolate manufacturing unit and dinosaur museum that’s being constructed close to the airport and the addition of recent novice sports activities services relating to bringing in in a single day guests.
The long-range tourism research, which is a primary for the neighborhood, will have a look at these tasks and different present property whereas additionally contemplating different concepts that might present progress sooner or later.
“The hope can be that we find yourself with a unifying imaginative and prescient all through the county,” Jarnecke mentioned. “That may enable us to place all accessible assets to their finest use.”
E mail Tribune workers author Ed Semmler at [email protected].
