Momentum drives record tourism in Clark, Floyd counties
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Visitor spending in Clark and Floyd counties hit record levels in 2022, according to a new report from Maryland-based market research firm Rockport Analytics.
The report shows visitors to the two counties spent just under $510 million on food and beverage, shopping, lodging, transportation, entertainment and recreation, up 23% from the previous year.
SoIN Tourism, the destination marketing organization for the southern Indiana counties, said the record spending generated $285 million for the local economy.
Jim Epperson, executive director for SoIN Tourism, told Inside INdiana Business says the spending numbers go beyond just the typical leisure trip.
“It includes youth sports tournaments. It includes business travel and meetings and conferences and conventions, and affinity groups,” Epperson said. “We’re very active in the senior motor coach tour market, and we’ve seen growth in all of those market segments. It’s just a growing, healthy visitor economy and economy in general in southern Indiana.”
The 2022 visitor spending total is not just higher than the previous year, Epperson said, but also higher than the previous high set in 2019 before the pandemic.
The report showed that for every dollar spent in Clark and Floyd counties in 2022, 56 cents stayed in the local economy, which SoIN Tourism said helps alleviate some of the tax burden from residents.
Additionally, of the overall spending, $43.4 million went back into the local economy in the form of re-spent wages, the agency said.
A key aspect to the growth in visitor spending, according to Epperson, has been the addition of new hotels, which has been taking place since during the pandemic.
“There’s a magic spot at which investors start taking a look at your numbers as a region and thinking, ‘Yeah, there’s money to be made there,'” he said. “And I saw in 2023 us start to reach that threshold, when there is going to be more investment in new hotel properties. So it’s not just a case of needing more [hotels], but it’s also upping the game and bringing in the newer modern brand prototypes.”
Job creation within the tourism industry in Clark and Floyd counties also saw a jump for the second consecutive year. The report shows that tourism accounts for 6% of all jobs in the two counties and increased total employment by over 21% in 2022.
Travelers supported just under 7,000 jobs, which produced over $170 million in wages, according to the report.
Looking to the future, Epperson said destinations always have to reinvent themselves in order to be competitive to get people to make a return visit. Part of that effort, he said, could be the addition of new music festivals to complement existing events such as Jammin’ in Jeff and the Abbey Road on the River concert in Jeffersonville.
But officials in the two counties are also looking to add more business travel to the region with the addition of a conference center, which currently doesn’t exist.
“We really only have two hotels with meetings facilities, and so we went through a study process that not only told us, yes, we should pursue that market, but here’s what your building should look like,” Epperson said. “So we’re working with the town of Clarksville, which was selected as the preferred community based on the parcel that they have available and the profile around that.”
Epperson said they’re still in the early stages of what will be a multiyear effort to establish a new conference center, and an estimated timeline is not yet known.
“We’re trying to plan those things that are that are two years, five years, 10 years out to keep our destination competitive.”