By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph saw a flood of visitors as the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs visited the city for training camp.
St. Joseph Convention and Visitors Bureau spokesperson Christian Mengel says museums and restaurants saw massive boosts in visitors during Chiefs training camp.
"The fans aren't just going to training camp but they're also going somewhere to eat afterwards and then maybe seeing a museum or checking out the arts," Mengel tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "They're staying in town and that's the most important thing that we want to see."
Mengel says when calculating the economic impact of camp there are many factors to consider.
"It's hard to measure the exact amount of time someone stays but then you also have to count the Chiefs organization as they're own separate thing in terms of look at how many staff members come or how many staff members work camp and the players they have to eat too," Mengel says. "And so, all that money is in Buchanan County."
Mengel says that while they still have to do the calculations, they do know the tourism impact in the summer wouldn't be the same without Chiefs Training Camp.
And Mengel says the CVB sees many people coming back even once camp is complete.
"There's a lot of people who they come for camp and then they learn what's in the town, and they realize they didn't budget maybe enough of their own time to do everything that they really want to do or everything that they've learned about that they want to do," Mengel explains. "And so, they do have a reason to come back so we do see that repeat visitor which is always great too."
Mengel says often they'll see people take more information than they might be able to do in one trip because they intend to come back and visit St. Joseph again.