MARKETING SUCCESS

2022 was the year of momentum for Sugar Land’s Office of Economic Development. Ending the year with more than 136 million media impressions, Sugar Land’s story was told far and wide, appearing in rankings like Fortune’s Best Places to Live for Families and ten feature episodes of Tom Wilmer’s NPR/ KCBX podcast Journeys of Discovery.

Beginning our partnership in 2019, SLOED and Development Counsellors International (DCI) have continuously worked together to create an evolving, comprehensive digital marketing plan with the goal of positioning Sugar Land as a strategic location for business investment and talent attraction. With headlines and digital campaigns ranging from business spotlights to elevating thought leaders and community efforts, Sugar Land was featured in 25 unique stories, with SLOED and DCI working together to harness media relationships with local outlets such as the Houston Chronicle and national media like MSN.

Elevating Sugar Land’s Story Through Thought Leadership

An entrepreneurial spirit can be felt throughout the City of Sugar Land – the “Sugar Land Way” widely exemplified by everyday residents and leaders in the community. A large part of our media

20 22

Economy At A Glance

relations strategy revolved around elevating community examples to demonstrate industry depth and expertise. Featured in Business Facilities Magazine’s March/April print issue and Site Selection Magazine’s A Decade of Dominance Texas Guide 2022, Sugar Land businesses like Bluebonnet Nutrition Corporation, Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital, Accredo Packaging, HCSS, SLB, Champion X, PG Golf, Helix, Inc. and more were profiled to showcase innovation spreading throughout the greater Houston region.

Sugar Land’s city leaders were also elevated through storytelling, securing media opportunities for a variety of stakeholders including Mayor Zimmerman, SLOED leadership, Sugar Land Parks and Recreation, Visit Sugar Land and more.

62% with Bachelor Degree and Higher Median Household Income

$123,261 Population

109,373

(Source: Census)

COMMERCIAL REAL STATE

Elevating Sugar Land’s Story Through Community Efforts

Balancing economically-focused storylines with talent attraction messaging, Sugar Land was continuously positioned as a great place to live, work and visit. Coverage throughout the year detailed Sugar Land as a safe, diverse and highly educated community, earning mentions in outlets such as Wealth of Geeks, MSN, CultureMap Houston, NPR and Fortune.

Elevating Sugar Land’s Story Through Digital Campaigns

Our digital advertising campaigns worked in harmony with our national media relations program to complement strategies and further amplify reach. While advertising campaigns worked tirelessly around the clock to promote Sugar Land’s online presence, DCI/SLOED worked alongside to improve content, generate leads and better engage target audiences.

8.8M

INDUSTRIAL/ FLEX INVENTORY 11.8M

RETAIL INVENTORY 10.4M

OCCUPANCY (%)

61.4%

AVERAGE DAILY RATE ($) $104.33

REVENUE PER AVAILABLE ROOM ($) $64.16

Tourism Marketing

This past year, Visit Sugar Land (VSL) – the tourism division of the Sugar Land Office of Economic Development (SLOED) responsible for positioning Sugar Land as a premier destination city focused on innovative ways to attract visitors. The following annual highlights showcase just a few of the ways Visit Sugar Land’s innovative leadership grew the city’s tourism brand, as well as the city’s top leisure destination partners.

Destination Partners

Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land

The Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land celebrated its first full year of operation since the COVID-19 shutdown and saw an estimated attendance of over 300,000 guests in 2022. With a robust variety of music, comedy and special events, the venue welcomed 90 dates of established talent including Hasan Minhaj, Ron White, JoKoy, Pentatonix, Tears for Fears, Tomorrow x Together, Gloria Trevi, Alicia Keys and many more.

Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land

Situated in one of Sugar Land’s historic buildings, the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land welcomed more than 82,000 attendees this past year. Highlights for the year included the summer special exhibit, Expedition Egypt, with 8,000 attendees, (Visitor breakdown: 26% field trips and 74% general public and museum member visitors, equally split between adults and children.)

Family friendly events like Pi Day, Nature Programs weekly, Halloween Magical Maze Festival and Cookies with Santa make the museum a destination for families.

Space Cowboys Campaign

VSL launched a spring campaign in support of the Space Cowboys being a Triple-A Affiliate team during their Opening Day. There were a series of experiential marketing activations that took place to help create buzz and generate excitement for the Sugar Land Space Cowboys Opening Day.

Activations

Created a promotional baseball video that garnered approximately 11k views on YouTube.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game Singing Contest

Invited the city council members to participate in the Space Cowboys Recognition “Space Cowboys Day”

Meet and Greet with Sugar Land Space Cowboys Mascot Orion and Street Team at multiple locations.

SLOED partnered with the Sugar Land Fire Department to custom wrap a Space Cowboys themed truck to active a “Spot the Fire truck” campaign throughout the city.

Partnered with First Colony Mall and muralist Donkeeboy to create a custom Space Cowboys mural at the mall with a @ VisitSugarLand call to action.

Partnered with local restaurants to create Space Cowboys themed drinks and food and special room rates with hotel partners.

Summer Campaign – Biking in Sugar Land

In the summer VSL launched a summer campaign biking video to capitalize on the popularity the Brazos River Park trails have experienced within the past few years. The video ran on connected TV platforms like Roku and Hulu that garnered approximately 84,000 impressions and a video completion rate of 95% which is a 35% increase above the benchmark of 70-75%. Additionally, VSL ran a YouTube campaign that garnered over 88,000 views.

12 Days of Sweetness GIVEWAYS

SALES & MEETINGS

12 Days of Sweetness - Holiday Campaign

Additionally, in the winter VSL activated its final campaign of the year by launching a 12 Days of Sweetness giveaways from December 11 to December 22. There was a total of 12 giveaways, all which featured our top leisure destinations, restaurants and hotels. The final campaign continued to be aligned with the overall goal of supporting local businesses and attracting visitors to Sugar Land.

VSL through its partnership with Visit Houston, utilization of Cvent and direct leads from the VSL website disseminated thirty-four (34) leads to Sugar Land’s ten (10) hotel partners in 2022.

Visitor Center

The Sugar Land Heritage Museum and Visitor Center (SLHMVC) moved to a seasonal schedule in February 2022. The museum and visitor center welcomed a total of 171 visitors throughout the year with a majority leaving with a feeling of “Very Satisfied.” Most visitors are coming from the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area, with the largest group being from Sugar Land. During the year, VSL staff welcomed visitors from California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Canada.

The total revenue realized from the leads originating from VSL was $86,321.34, and the total revenue realized from meeting services assistance was $94,389.39.

Fifty-six (56) events were reviewed and permitted through the Event Review Committee, including one (1) event at the Crown Festival Park at Sugar Land and five (5) events at the Plaza Adjacent to Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land. A total of 144,731 expected attendees participated between all permitted events. VSL staff collected $2,509.75 in application fees and $5,584.75 in rental fees.

Cultural Arts

In March 2022, a sculpture bench entitled Crush, the Alligator was unveiled in Lonnie Green Park. The seating sculpture was created by California-based artist Colin Selig. Crush is composed of repurposed scrap steel propane tanks and was designed as a climate conscious artwork, containing 99 percent post-consumer reused material. The artwork’s unique color and design were created to be the only one of its kind in the state of Texas.

Cultural Arts also assisted Visit Sugar Land for their commission of a mural by Houston-based artist Donkeeboy to celebrate the launch of the Sugar Land Space Cowboys. The mural is located at First Colony Mall on the rear wall of Dimassi’s Mediterranean Buffet and was unveiled on May 27, 2022.

In August, Cultural Arts dedicated its third installment of vinyl traffic box wrap artworks, in partnership with the Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation. This year, 13 wraps by 10 local artists were installed along HWY 6 from Austin Parkway to Hull Lane. Each design was inspired by the theme “Sugar Land Looks Ahead.” Artists were honored with a dedication event at the Sugar Land Heritage Museum and Visitor Center on September 15, 2022.