A rising tide: Tuscaloosa visitors spent $895 million in 2022, tourism group says
When extrapolating from figures to futures, the formula ROI — return on investment — crops up often.
While setting the stage for Tuscaloosa Tourism and Sports/Visit Tuscaloosa's funding request, Kelsey Colglazier Rush, its president and CEO, presented charts and graphs showing 2022 numbers, highlighted by $895 million.
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That's the amount spent by visitors in Tuscaloosa County, a nearly 20% jump over the previous year.
"That means more revenue available to fill potholes, pave roads, support our schools, maintain facilities like the Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, fund organizations like Visit Tuscaloosa, and much more," Rush said.
While Visit Tuscaloosa enhances quality of life, inspires visitation, and helps arrange "first dates" for economic development, she added, "We also do what very few agencies can do for you, and that is generate revenue."
For 2023, Visit Tuscaloosa has been working on a budget of $1,572,205.14, with $1,335,352 of that from the city.
Other funding came from the city of Northport, $25,000; Tuscaloosa County, $25,000; a tourism grant of $5,000; corporate partners, $50,000; carryover from the high school football event Super 7, $92,000; and $40,000 in reserves for strategic planning.
The presentation Aug. 1 before the Tuscaloosa City Council's finance committee was preparatory, with nothing yet up for a vote. But vocal affirmation from the committee indicated Visit Tuscaloosa's proposed 2024 city funding increase of $64,000, with possibly another allocated $52,000 to support two newly landed conferences for 2024, would be looked on favorably.
If the city and other funding sources meet requested numbers, the 2024 Visit Tuscaloosa budget would reach $1,642,500.
Rush provided other tourism figures:
Last year, Tuscaloosa County employed almost 10,000 people in the tourism industry. Alabama Tourism Department reports indicate that number rose 3.4% from 2020 to 2022, from 5,751 to 9,854.
As of June 2023, Tuscaloosa County has 4,404 hotel rooms. About 93 percent of those are in the city of Tuscaloosa.
Fiscal year 2022 lodging tax revenue was $10,952,000, from a 58% occupancy rate, reaching a total of $104 million in lodging revenue.
Of that, $7,965,000 went to the general fund, $1,991,400 to the River District fund, and $995,700 to the tourism enhancement fund (approximate distributions).
Current hotel revenue growth is up 11%, suggesting fiscal year 2023 could raise an additional $1.1 to $1.3 million lodging tax revenue over FY 2022, from about $112 to $115 million in lodging revenue.
Those numbers were achieved with a 58% room occupancy rate. The national average is 62.7%; so should Tuscaloosa bump up to that U.S. figure, it would mean another 65,000 nights per year, bringing in another $615,000 for the city.
"At one point, we were at 62 ( percent occupancy)," Rush said, but Tuscaloosa's added a considerable number of rooms in the past few years. Newer hotels include the Alamite, and an IHG Avid, both opened in 2022; Homewood Suites downtown, opened February 2021; and Comfort Inn and Suites downtown, and TownePlace Suites, both opened in summer 2020.
The tourism group's 94 created, supported or assisted 2022 events were presented as a $28.5 million economic impact, which Rush said was a conservative figure. That's up about 19% from 2021.
The team's Jasmine Rainey, Chevonne Torrence, and Stan Adams attended 13 trade shows pitching Tuscaloosa, holding 335 one-on-one meetings with people who make destination decisions. The additional $52,000 Rush mentioned would go to support two conferences Tuscaloosa will host next year, the Alabama Governor's Conference on Tourism, and the Motorcoach Association's Regional (Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina) Conference.
Such events are pay-to-play, she said, with the hosting group essentially wining and dining, and showing off the best of the community for the kinds of tourism people who can bring return guests and events. Rush estimated expenses of $25,000 for the governor's conference, and $27,000 for the motorcoach conference.
She also gave glimpses of the group's other successes over the past year, including hosting 26 press visits for journalists, travel writers and others from as far away as Europe, and as close as in-state.
The Visit Tuscaloosa social media reach extended, despite not having much money behind it, she said, with the group's business spotlights reaching tens of thousands, and promotions such as Restaurant Week receiving positive feedback from guests and businesses. Such outreach helps locals as much as, or more than, visitors.
"We have people constantly reach out to us who say I have lived here for 10 years, I have lived here for five years, I have lived here since 2017, and you are helping me learn to love the community that I live in," Rush said.
To compile the stats, Visit Tuscaloosa pulled from its own data and that of the Alabama Tourism Department, with comparison rubrics via reports from Smith Travel Research, a hospitality analytics firm. Smith reports can show how our local hotels are doing, in context from, competitive set analysis; in other words, how Tuscaloosa's lodgings stack up against those in similar cities.
Geolocation and credit-card tracking can help determine not only who's here spending, but how they're spending it, Rush said.
"It's never 100 percent, but it gives a big picture: You know, 45% of credit-card spend was on food; 13% of credit-card spend was on accommodations," she said. From that, Visit Tuscaloosa can infer whether people are just stopping off the interstate to get gas and lunch, on their way from Atlanta to New Orleans, or whether they're seeing the Druid City as a destination.
With the hoped-for increase in spending, among things Visit Tuscaloosa needs to invest in are better software to help measure ROIs, and promotional dollars for both leisure travel and sports tourism, she said.
"There is a story for us to tell. There is capacity to bring more visitors here, and there is a reason for us to bring visitors beyond the seven Saturdays in the fall," Rush said. "And I believe we can do that, and we can make it happen together."
After her presentation, District 5 City Councilor Kip Tyner, president of the council, reiterated the ROI points.
"I want everybody to remember that this is the only agency that we fund that brings in revenue, additional revenue to this city," Tyner said. "The more advantages we can give them, the more money they can bring in."
Rush also shared updated the new visitors' guides with the committee, and noted that just last week, TTS presented a rough draft of its five-year strategic plan to its board of directors. That's in the final stages, she said, and should be ready in the next four to six weeks. The low ask for this year was in part because the plan isn't yet complete. With that in hand, coming years' requests may go higher, Rush said.
Part of strategic plan work involved a perception study, asking what people picture when they think "Tuscaloosa," with an eye to how other college towns fare, places such as Athens, Ga. (a music scene that's spawned, among others, REM, The B-52s, Pylon, Widespread Panic and Drive-by Truckers), and Auburn (a growing foodie scene, with restaurant numbers tripling, several of them with ties to James Beard Award winners; the university debuted a multidisciplinary culinary school in fall 2022).
For Tuscaloosa, predictably, the top words were football and barbecue. When offered other word choices, many respondents also noted water.
"One of our greatest assets beyond having a successful football team here is our water," Rush said. Rivers, creeks and lakes came up in every strategic planning conversation, she said.
The city as we know it was founded by water, as it was once the highest navigable point on the Black Warrior River, named for a translation of the name of Muskogean Chief Tuskalusa. Its northern port became Northport. A waterfall prevented further traffic until the federal government began constructing a series of locks and dams in the 1880s. Its largest major tributary, the North River, was dammed in the late '60s/early '70s, at a cost of $7,725,000, to become the 5,885 acre city reservoir Lake Tuscaloosa, also a recreational spot for boating, swimming, skiing, fishing and other activities.
The more compact 220-acre Harris Lake and 384-acre Lake Nicol offer some access nearby, for swimming, canoeing and bird-watching. Tuscaloosa County Park and Recreation Authority maintains Hurricane Creek Park, popular with swimmers, kayakers, paddleboarders, picnickers and hikers, with restrooms, picnic tables, walking and biking tracks and trails on site. Nine miles west of Tuscaloosa there's 1,625-acre Lake Lurleen State Park, with a campground, activity building, picnic areas, play areas, pavilions, a beach and bathhouse, fishing piers, RV storage, boat rentals and boat-launch areas.
"Outdoor recreation has a lot of untapped potential," Rush said. "Again, it goes back to how some small things can make a big difference, some accessibility ... and the other thing is how can we incentivize, or how can we encourage small businesses to do things like more paddleboard and kayak rentals, or renting bicycles for you to go for a ride at the riverwalk. How can we cultivate that?"
Rush's personal vision will be wound into the planning, as she has helped set the day-to-day tempo and tone of Visit Tuscaloosa. The "first date" wording resonates, as that was her experience a little over a decade ago. Having finished college, and worked an internship that didn't lead to a career position, she here came to visit a friend.
"I moved here not knowing a single thing about Tuscaloosa," she said. "I came for 48 hours, spent a weekend here, and really fell in love with the community and said, 'This is where I want to be.'"
Through the work, Rush hopes she and Visit Tuscaloosa can help others fall in love.
“Our community is poised for continued success, and as a community asset Visit Tuscaloosa plays a key role in positioning our area as a dynamic place to live, work, play and visit," she said.
"The team at Visit Tuscaloosa is driven by our passion to make a difference and that’s what influences our vision: to enhance our area through tourism and destination promotion in a way that improves quality of life, fuels economic development, supports small businesses, creates job opportunities and generates new revenue.
"That’s what I call making a difference.”
At present, according to the city clerk, there's no date set for the full council to vote on the funding requests. For more, see www.visittuscaloosa.com.
Reach Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: A rising tide: Tuscaloosa visitors spent $895 million in 2022
