By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
A large impact on the community that people might not know about is the number of tourists that travel in.
Executive Director of the St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau Marci Bennett says while people may not know it's large impact, tourism is the second largest industry in the state
"And it's so hard for people to realize the impact, because we're not producing boxes and widgets, and you can't count the boxes and the widgets," Bennett tells host of the KFEQ Hotline Barry Birr. "It is bringing people into the state, into the county, to spend their money, have an excellent time, and then go home."
Bennett says in the 2022 Fiscal Year Buchanan County saw tourists spending more than $216M in the county according to the Department of Revenue
Bennett says while it's not fully back, tourism is slowly growing again.
"We have the leisure travel back, we have the sports travel back, it's the business travel that has not come back really," Bennett explains. "The business meetings and the conventions that you would have so many people are using Zoom and that kind of thing, so we've really had to supplant that with focusing more on the leisure and on the sports marketing."
Already this year the Convention and Visitors Bureau alongside the St. Joseph Sports Commission has brough the Division II Women's Elite Eight to the city.
Later this year should bring more tourism as in December Kansas State and Missouri will play in the Inaugural Bill Snyder Classic at Civic Arena.
With the tourism industry steadily growing back following the coronavirus pandemic, and with people coming to St. Joseph, hotels are filling up.
Bennett says the occupancy at hotels in the city has been near the top in the state.
"We have the highest occupancy and the second to the highest average daily rate, and that's two-fold, it's because we're keeping them full but because we need more inventory," Bennett says. "We need more hotels and more meeting space, and there are plans in the works right now to have some of that done."
Bennett says in order to book more events like the Division II Women's Elite Eight, it's important to get more space to draw more teams to the area.