Jon Anderson, Popcorn Festival honored during annual tourism breakfast

2018 Marion Area Tourism Breakfast Announces Economic Impact Data, Award recipients, and more.

The annual Marion Area Convention & Visitors Bureau Tourism Breakfast was held in the May Pavilion of the Marion Palace Theatre Friday, May 11. The annual event gathers tourism industry staffs, community leaders, and elected officials to celebrate tourism in the County. The theme for this year’s breakfast was vision to achievement. Holbrook cited several Marionites past and present whose vision founded, expanded, and contributed to the community. Executive Director of the Visitors Bureau, Mark Holbrook hosted the annual event and says, “We spend 364 days each year focused on communicating to people outside of Marion, inviting them to visit. This one day we set aside to share with the local community the importance of tourism to our local economy.”

Holbrook highlighted the Bureau’s marketing efforts, including the 30,000 visitor guides printed and distributed throughout the U.S. and Canada. Other efforts are the Local Restaurant Guide and Marion Cultural Corridor Walking Map.

The Visitor Bureau is funded solely through the 3% County lodging tax and broke numerous records in 2017. 11 of the twelve months set new records for tax revenues and the annual total of $194,920 surpassed the 2016 amount by $18,268. Total revenue for the six hotels along State Route 23 in 2017 was $10 million, generating $492,627 in local taxes.

Overall, tourism spending in 2017 rose 11.3% over 2016, totally $88,728,500. Of that, food & beverage spending was more than $30million and retail spending was almost $35 million. Holbrook also shared that indirect spending, the money businesses spend for supplies and materials totaled almost $24 million and induced spending, the dollars employees spend locally as a result of their tourism generated wages totaled almost $21 million. Combined, the economic impact of tourism in Marion County for 2017 was $134, 444,644. Those dollars were produced from 641,789 total visitors. 564,634 visited for a day, 77,155 stayed at least one night in Marion.

The featured speaker for the event was Lute Harmon Jr., publisher of Ohio Magazine and president of its parent company, Great Lakes Publishing. Harmon shared with attendees the history of Ohio Magazine and its commitment to growing the tourism industry in Ohio.

The Visitors Bureau awards grants to local tourism nonprofits each year and three grants were announced at the breakfast, each for $500. Receiving grants were the Marion Wings & Wheels event, the Blues & BBQ event, and the Huber Museum.

Also announced were the recipients of the Visitors Bureau’s two annual awards. The Customer Service Star award is given to one group or individual in the hospitality and service industry that best exemplifies what it means to provide excellent customer service. Nominees must have a direct or indirect affiliation with the service or hospitality industry and interact with the general public as well as visitors in Marion County. Nominations are submitted by co-workers, supervisors, and friends. The Marion Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Trustees selects the recipient through the process of secret ballot.

This year’s nominees were the Fairfield Inn Staff, Jon Anderson from the Harding Home, Red Lobster Staff, and Tommy Trent from Tommy’s Creations. The recipient of the 2018 Customer Service Star Award was Jon Andersen from the Harding Home.

The Marion Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Tourism Ambassador Award is given to a person or group that has been instrumental in bringing visitors to our community or someone who has been a great Ambassador for our community over a period of years. The award honors the recipient for their body of work in making a substantial contribution to tourism in Marion. The Marion Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Trustees nominates and selects the recipient during the spring each year. The 2018 recipient of the Marion Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Tourism Ambassador Award was given to Mike Nicolosi of the Marion Popcorn Festival.

The annual tourism breakfast takes place each year on the Friday during Ohio Tourism Week and is followed the next day by Be A Tourist in Your Own Backyard Day, a day when Marion County residents can visit local tourism destination and receive special offers and discounts. Holbrook says, the purpose of Be A Tourist Day is to, “remind locals of all the great things to see and do in our community and encourage them to invite someone to Marion for a visit.”