Sports a salvation for Rome tourism industry this year
♦ Rome Tennis Center is hosting a youth tennis championship this weekend, organizers expect close to 300 players.
The record books will need an asterisk regarding the end of a steady annual increase in the economic impact of tourism in Rome and Floyd County.
Rome Sports Commission Director Ann Hortman said 2020 is disappointing in many ways, and sports tourism was no exception.
“We are very fortunate that we are a sports-minded community,” Hortman said. “Tennis was one of the first sports to come back, then was followed by baseball and softball. Parks and Rec had a lot of people knocking on their doors.”
The tourism tide began to turn a little in June and has been steady much of the rest of the year.
Rome Floyd Chamber members were told that December should be a big month with the Georgia Elite Classic football all-star event on Dec. 18-20 at Barron Stadium.
The event had been hosted in Marietta for years but was moved to Rome this year.
The USTA Southern Championship Boys & Girls 16/18 tournament is in town this weekend, and they’re expecting close to 300 players.
“USTA realized that there were a lot of kids that were not getting their rankings because of COVID so they added some tournaments,” Hortman said.
Another big tournament will be held between Christmas and New Year’s Day bringing a surge of visitors to the community.
“I can’t talk about it (yet) but I have something very exciting that is going to happen in the first quarter (of 2021),” Hortman said. “I think it is going to be phenomenal and is something I have worked toward for years.”
The Rome Tennis Center will be hosting several new tournaments in 2021. Hortman credited completion of the new six- court indoor tennis facility for helping win bids for a number of big events.
The Atlantic Coast Conference men’s and women’s tennis championships will be back in Rome in April.
She expects events that are already on the books for 2021 to add as many as 25,000 unique visitors to the community.
She also spoke about film and television production opportunities in Rome.
Communities like Savannah and Columbus offer financial incentives to lure cameras to those communities and Hortman said she hasn’t been able to find a pot of money to incentivize producers to come to Rome.
“They love coming to Rome because they love our scenery and landscape, we’re very unique,” Hortman said, but that financial aspect is still a hurdle.
Programming at the Floyd County College and Career Academy offers an opportunity for students to get a foot in the door with some independent filmmakers.
“Typically when a major studio comes, they bring everything with them and very rarely ask for any assistance from the community,” she said.