Tourism brought $17M to Floyd
Special events like the air show, church conventions and tennis tournaments are big draws.
The impact of the new Rome Tennis Center at Berry College can easily be seen in new numbers from the Greater Rome Convention and Visitors Bureau. CVB Executive Director Lisa Smith reported this week that tourism events her office has had a direct hand in generated more than $17.6 million in 2017, an increase of 29 percent.
Tennis-related events alone accounted for $4.9 million, or 28 percent of the total number of dollars left behind by visitors last year. Ann Hortman, director of the Rome Sports Commission, said the tennis figure was up 95.6 percent from 2016.
Tennis Center Director Tom Daglis said one tournament alone last year brought players from 45 of the 50 states. He estimated more than 7,500 competitors participated in tournaments last year and another 15,000 people associated with those players, such as parents, other family members and coaches, were visitors to Rome last year.
Daglis said he expects to up that bar in 2018 and will get a jump start in March with the International Tennis Federation Wheelchair Championships. Players from 14 different nations are already registered for that event.
The tennis center has 44 tournaments on the books for this year.
Special events in 2017, including the Wings Over North Georgia air show and numerous Jehovah’s Witness Conferences, generated more than $8 million for the local economy. The special events revenue was up 36.4 percent over 2016.
The CVB annual report indicates that meetings and conventions brought in $1.1 million in 2017. Smith hopes upgrades to the Forum River Center will beef up that segment of the industry in 2018 and years going forward.
“Right now we’re bidding on things for 2019 through 2021. Having available properties (Marriott, Hampton, Hawthorn and Days Inn) within close proximity to our meeting facility is big,” Smith said. “Also, partners like Berry, which has great facilities for meetings, they’re allowing us to have more meetings at their place. Our meetings have come up since 2016 and I think that number will continue to grow.”
Smith also said that having a shared employee with the Forum River Center in the form of Thomas Kislat has already shown benefits for the attraction of additional conventions and meetings in Rome.
The tourism report shows more than 172,000 visitors that were tracked by the CVB helped generate more than $528,000 in local tax money last year.
Statewide, the Georgia Department of Economic Development reports that 105 million tourists visited Georgia in 2017, leaving more than $60.8 billion in the state. The industry was responsible for 450,200 jobs across Georgia.