As the local hospitality and tourism industry works to bounce back from a devastating year, the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau is getting a boost for its effort help kickstart the return of visitors to the region.
The Centre County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a $250,000 grant from the county’s share of American Rescue Plan funds to the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau for a “summer blitz” promoting the area as a tourism destination.
“This will foster the local economic recovery and help restore the hospitality industry and workforce,” Fritz Smith, the bureau’s president and CEO, said during the commissioners meeting on Tuesday morning. “We think that a robust summer marketing campaign is necessary to bring visitors back and to drive visitor spending. Our businesses badly need it after the past year.”
Centre County is among the first in the country to allot ARP funds for tourism promotion, Commissioner Mark Higgins said.
The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a serious blow to the county’s hospitality industry, just as it was on track to see a record year for visitations and tourist spending, Smith said.
From 2019 to 2020, Centre County saw a drop of 1.3 million visitors, and a loss of 500,000 overnight stays. Hotel revenue was down 71.6% — a revenue loss of $60 million — and average daily hotel rates fell by 32% from April 2020 to March 2021.
HVAB estimates that local and visitor spending losses totaled $425 million.
But now, with the most recent surveys showing that 87% of Americans plan to travel in the next six months, “the game of destination marketing is back on,” Smith said, and Centre County is competing against other Pennsylvania counties and states for tourists and their dollars.
“It’s critical that Centre County get its share of those visitors,” Smith said.
To do that, the grant is supporting a multifaceted campaign in July and August targeting key markets in and outside Pennsylvania through 18 advertising outlets across platforms including broadcast, print, digital, social media and billboards. Fullington Trailways buses that make daily runs to Pittsburgh and New York are even being wrapped with Happy Valley messaging and imagery.
Without the ARP grant, Smith said, television advertising would not have been possible, and it enabled substantially more digital marketing.
The “pillars” of local tourism promoted by the campaign are led by outdoor destinations.
“Even during the pandemic people were coming to enjoy the outdoor assets here, because it’s healthy,” Smith said. “Outdoor recreation all over the United States was a way people were getting away and trying to keep themselves sane by going hiking and camping and so forth. We’ve got those assets here. Our state parks really had a record year last year. It was one of the few segments that didn’t suffer.”
Other assets the campaign promotes are attractions, history, agritourism and farm-to-table, arts and culture, small town charm and the small city vibe of State College, Smith said.
The campaign has seven specific goals, including increasing visitations during the week as well as on weekends to make up for lost revenues from business meetings. Smith said business travel is one aspect of the hospitality industry that has not bounced back yet.
“So you really have to hang your hat on the leisure traveling right now,” Smith said. “We’re really starting to do quite well on the weekends already. …We’ve got a couple of fairly new sports facilities that are generating a lot of…amateur sports and basketball, wrestling, volleyball. We’re doing quite well on the weekends. We need some business during the week.”
He added that hospitality businesses are having a hard time attracting employees and that part of the challenge is that potential workers are seeking full-time employment that is difficult to provide when employers need more staff on the weekends, but less so on weekdays.
“A lot of our messaging is going to be about, why not come visit when there’s not so many people here? Things are affordable, the restaurants will be delighted to see you,” Smith said.
Another goal is to restore hospitality jobs that were lost during the pandemic to match an anticipated demand of increased visitation. Of about 5,400 people employed in the Centre County hospitality industry, approximately 1,800 were out of work at the peak of the pandemic. About half of those have come back, but Smith said he would like to see it back at full employment. Some people pursued other fields, and potential employees need to be convinced that the hospitality industry is back to being a reliable employer, he said.
“One of the things I thought of, particularly as a business person, is you can’t go from zero to 60 in no time at all,” Commissioner Steve Dershem said. “This gives the hospitality industry a lot of other folks in the community a chance to ramp up for what we know is a strong [Penn State] football season, a strong fall. I think it’s the opportunity for those folks to get back into the business. Going back to your employment numbers, I think it really is important that we ramp those up so we are ready for September so we don’t hit the first football game and realize we’re still down… in our employment needs.”
Other goals of the campaign include more than 10,000 new referrals to HVAB member business from HappyValley.com and 350,000 additional page views to the website.
“That would be a significant increase,” Smith said. “The website is now your key marketing vehicle.”
In the end, HVAB is aiming for 3,000 additional room nights in Centre County lodging facilities, 15,000 new visitors to the county and $25 million in additional visitor spending for lodging, restaurants, shops, services, attractions and performing arts venues.
Board of Commissioners Chair Michael Pipe noted that before the pandemic the county was approaching $1 billion in annual visitor spending and the campaign is a way to help get back on that track.
“With this today and the work that’s going to be done to advertise and … supercharge the tourism economy here, this really allows us to get to that billion dollars of tourism spend, get to that benchmark a lot sooner,” Pipe said.
“We know football is coming back and that’s music to everybody’s ears, but we need to do something this summer. This positions … just gets us right out in front, allows us to compete for those folks who are ready to travel again and get out.”
Pipe added that based on the outcome of the campaign, the county may allocate additional ARP funds toward tourism promotion.
For Smith and HVAB’s efforts to revitalize the tourism economy, the overarching message is clear.
“‘Happy Valley is open,’ is the headline,” Smith said.
