2012 Fort Wayne Tourism Report

The 2012 Summer Tourism Season in Fort Wayne Rating Scale: Very good =

Good =

OK =

Pre-season Promotions by Visit Fort Wayne Marketing – Kristen Guthrie, Marketing Manager - We did more in promotions than ever before – more ads on TV, more newspaper inserts and lots more web promotions. We saw a huge increase in inquiries as a result, mostly via the website. Unique visitors were up 89% over 2011, and we were already up 104% over 2010 numbers!

Website - We exceeded our annual goal for website uses for 1 million page views by mid-July! I attribute that to many things, but a lot of it has to do with our website staff. They populated the Calendar of Events regularly, Alex ‘worked the web’ for maximum exposure, we added ‘userfriendly’ features plus doing we did a monthly online contests for people to win concert tickets.

Finally, we posted over 100 blogs about Fort Wayne’s things to see and do that stimulated both new clicks-throughs to the website and generated new visitors to Fort Wayne too.

Rating for Preseason Promotions:

Conventions –  Grand Wayne Center GM Bob Lister reported they hosted 18 conventions & conferences between June and September, 2012 with approximately 10,125 people. They hosted the IN Democratic convention of 3,000+ in June; the National Fishing Lure Collectors convention with 1,200 people in July and several smaller but still great groups in August. They heard nothing but praises for their building, the city’s hospitality and downtown’s fun places to eat.

These are the reasons the National Fishing Lure re-booked for 2014…before the left town! 

Memorial Coliseum GM Randy Brown reported they could end up with their best year ever.

With concerts like Elton John, shows like Batman and groups like Gold Wing, plus Komets, Home Show and other standards, their economic impact on Fort Wayne is up 23% year to date.

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Group Sales leads are on track for 30 bookings this year. Rebooking the Fishing Lures, hosting Gold Wing well and adding 2 new staff has kept everyone busy. To date we have sent 16 leads worth 6,940 room nights. Of those leads, we’ve booked 6 groups worth 3,650 room nights and will bring 3,500 new people to Fort Wayne.

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Wing Ding had over 7,500 attendees. We heard rave reviews about the friendliness of the city, the fantastic facility and how much fun they had at Grabill, the parade and TinCaps game. It was another huge success for all involved.

Rating for Conventions:

Attractions  Children’s Zoo – Jim Anderson reports its been an up and down year with great spring weather driving attendance up early, but extreme heat and violent storms in July drove them back down. Overall the Zoo’s excited that attendance is over 440,000, up 6% over last year so far. 

TinCaps – Mike Nutter reports 350,000+ fans, 18 sell-outs, in the playoffs for 4th year and great attendance at IU vs ND soccer and Bob Dylan concert. TinCaps and Parkview Field continue to play an important role in downtown and tourism offerings.

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Science Central – Martin Fisher, Executive Director said…We had a great summer! The Clinton bridge construction did not seriously hamper our visitations. We had a wonderful traveling exhibition about Mars in the building. Our visitor’ count was up during summer.

YTD we are also well up over 2011 with 90,671 people as of July 30th.

Rating for Attractions:

Festivals & Special Events 

Riverfest – Irene Walters, Executive Director, IPFW Community Relations reports it was a huge success with over 20,000 for this one-day, riverfront experience with pontoon rides, canoe races, music and fun that many people enjoy for free thanks to the many community sponsors. It’s fun, but the primary purpose is to educate people about the rivers and the role they can play in our quality of life in Fort Wayne.

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Three Rivers Festival - Jack Hammer reports I’m sure this year we were down some, the weather hurt us. With an average temperature of 91 degrees and very high humidity is hard for people to leave their homes and come down to Headwaters. It’s very hard to estimate, but the 2012 Parade grew by 44 units, the Midway ride sales increased however, Junk Food Alley was off slightly, (again, the heat) after a 20% increase last year. We work very hard to produce a family, fun and wide variety of entertaining events for the whole community.

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Downtown Fairs & Special Events - Tena Woeneker, DID Marketing Manager, said we counted about 3,500 to 4,000 people at Buskerfest. It was a little larger than in past years but since the festival was the day after the big storm, we think that hurt attendance. However the Taste of the Arts had approximately 25,000 to 30,000. It was a gorgeous day. People enjoyed the variety of the food, performances and activities. It was probably our best arts festival ever.

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Fort Wayne Airshow – Paula Hughes, Organizing Committee Chair, reported the first Air Show hosted in Fort Wayne in 13 years was by all measures a resounding success. Over 80,000 attendees flocked to witness 20 aerial performances, 20 static displays of aircraft, a VIP dinner for 500, a country music concert, a 5 & 10k race, Sensory Hour for children and a Top Gun themed party at Club Soda. Even thunderstorms and high heat didn’t keep the crowds away.

Rating for Festivals and Special Events:

Sports & Tournaments Megan Flohr, Group Services Manager reports:  PGA Juniors’ National Championships – attendance was up from previous year o 180 players, 200+ volunteers, 600+ spectators, 1000+ people o From 3 hotels with blocked rooms southwest: 653 room nights  National Soccer Festival – attendance was up from previous years o 11,000 people through the gates including tickets sold and participants o 199 room nights at 2 hotels, plus we suspect a few more sold at other hotels too o Mexico’s Chivas team vs IU ha huge crowd; broadcast on Fox Sports Soccer cable  AYBT o Approximately 10,000 people split between 2 different 4 day tournaments o 1,273 room nights reported with 5 hotels reporting. Estimate 2,000 room nights o Slightly down from previous years Rating for Sports & Tournaments:

Hotels, Motels & Inns  

Occupancy in May, June and July = 52.4, 58.25 and 70.4% (July was highest in IN) YTD occupancy = $53%. ADR at $73.30 per room. Not great, but not bad either.

Rating for Hotels & Motels:

Restaurants –  Steve Gard, Oyster Bar, reported July was his best month of the year to date.  F & B tax receipts were up 17% YTD thru July, 2012 according to Dept. Revenue.  Gordon Food Service said “This summer Casual, Quick Service and Family Dining fared better than Fine Dining. Resort and lake area restaurants had a good summer too.

Rating for Restaurants:

2012 Summer Tourism Season: Rating: