Planning for the next 15 years
I recently returned from vacation at Disney World in Orlando with my two children and another family.
It was overwhelming to comprehend the growth and pro tability that the Orlando community has experienced since my last visit 15 years ago.
One of the more interesting things I noticed in the strategically planned growth of Disney was a huge development of hundreds of sports elds that host some of the largest amateur sporting events in the world.
It is the rst attraction you see as you pass under the “Welcome to Disney World” arch. It dawned on me that Disney knew the value of attracting youth amateur sports visitors to their destination so that when they aren’t competing, they spend their money at Disney World and Orlando’s attractions and restaurants.
Disney’s success has to do with their pre-planning of future rides and development. They may spend years perfecting and tweaking that plan. That is what makes Disney who they are and so pro table. Orlando, along with New York City and Los Angeles, are among the three cities most visited by national and international visitors each year.
From a tourism standpoint, an average length of stay for a visitor in Orlando is seven days or longer. In comparison, for the Shreveport-Bossier City area, that stay is one and onehalf days. What is the secret to keeping visitors longer? Basically, give them more to do while they are here, but even that comes at a cost.
We can agree that Shreveport- Bossier City is no Orlando, but we do have an incredible location: 10,000- plus hotel rooms, land for future growth and a community that is full of Southern hospitality and loves sports.
I have heard through the years that Disney has shown interest in investing around our region to build a theme park.
Dare we imagine 10 million visitors a year coming to Shreveport-Bossier City, staying for seven days or more? The revenues from visitor expenditures could provide the funds necessary to maintain and improve infrastructures and other needs of our communities that are currently too challenging for their budgets.
I will leave you with this to think about. What do we want people to say about our destination in 15 years? It’s time to get serious about where we are and where we want to be. Our communities should sit down, both on the public and private side of business, and take a look at where we could be in 15 years – the next great cities of the South.
We will never know what we can be if we don’t have a plan in place now to move us forward.
Kelly Wells, CDME, CSEE is director of the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission. He has more than 16 years of experience in the sports and hospitality industry. He can be reached at kwells@sbctb.org or at 222-9391.
