Since its inception in 2013 the Pearland Convention & Visitors Bureau—a destination management organization overseen by the city manager’s office—has focused on promoting Pearland as a destination for weddings, sporting and corporate events. As a result, from 2013-15 Pearland has seen a rise in visitor spending that has also resulted in an increase of local and state tax revenue generated from visitor spending and tourism events.
“It’s really about networking and partnering and finding new ways to put Pearland a little bit more on the map,” PCVB Executive Director Kim Sinistore said. “Pearland is growing businesswise with all of the new companies that are moving here, [which] brings a lot of added employment. But there is also a need for events to [attract] travel with [these] businesses coming here.”
Sinistore said the city’s annual events, such as the International Festival and the Hometown Christmas Festival, have seen a steady increase in attendance since 2013. Pearland’s biggest attractions, however, have been the annual sporting tournaments hosted throughout the year.
With attendance at city events increasing, visitor spending at local retail centers and restaurants has also increased, Sinistore said. The marketing efforts of the PCVB have resulted in a 14 percent increase in Pearland’s hotel occupancy tax revenue by between 2014 and 2015.
“When anyone comes here they are going to stay in our hotels; they are going to shop in our retail stores; they are going to dine in our restaurants and they are going to spend their money on incidentals,” Sinistore said.
However, some Pearland hotel owners said with approximately 3,000 new hotel rooms expected to open in Houston by mid-2016, there may soon be a decrease in the number of visitors staying in the city. The city’s hotel industry includes 860 rooms and has seen its revenue increase from $9.8 million in 2010 to $20.5 million in 2014.
Nevertheless, some hotel owners say the increase of available hotel rooms in Houston will result in revenue losses as visitors from the Texas Medical Center looking to stay overnight will decrease.
“Because there are limited rooms in the [Texas] Medical Center, visitors want to stay somewhere where there are family-friendly restaurants and places to go,” said Rushi Patel, vice president of operations for Omkar Enterprises Management LLC—the management company that oversees Pearland’s Hampton Inn and Springhill Suites. “We’ve been benefiting off of that, but in the next few years, when all of these hotel rooms [in Houston] go online, [Houston] will have enough rooms to fill a convention and its normal demand.”
Finding a niche
Although Pearland does not have a large entertainment venue, it has found success as a sports destination for statewide tournaments in volleyball, soccer and basketball.
John Turner, head volleyball coach at Pearland High School, established the Texas Volleyball Invitational in 1996 as a statewide high school volleyball tournament. Over the last 19 years, the tournament has grown from hosting
28 teams to hosting 88 teams.
Turner said the popularity of the tournament has increased as a result of the continuous growth in Pearland over the last 20 years.
“The expansion of hotels and the shopping centers have just boomed,” he said. “When we were starting to grow, people would stay in the Clear Lake area, the Hobby [Airport] area and here. Now 95 percent of the teams stay in Pearland.”
As the city’s most profitable sports tournament, the Texas Volleyball Invitational has led the way for additional tournaments to be hosted in Pearland, such as the Texas Classic of Pearland basketball tournament and Little League Baseball tournaments.
The increase of annual sports tournaments in Pearland has also led to increased hotel occupancy tax revenue, Patel said. Hotel occupancy tax revenue is used for myriad purposes, which include funding the PCVB. Patel said the tournaments help stimulate the city’s hotel industry during slower months and during the weekends.
“I am all for tournaments because they help us on our soft weekends,” he said. “They do help the hotels a lot, [and] Pearland is becoming a sporting venue because it has a lot of venues.”
In addition the city is constructing two sports complexes to meet the growing sports interest and set the stage to host future tournaments. The Hickory Slough Sportsplex and the Shadow Creek Ranch Regional Sports Park are expected to open in late August and late September, respectively, and will include soccer, baseball and softball fields.
“Texas is a really big sports state, [and] that has really been a precedent,” Sinistore said. “We have a lot of young people who are interested in sports, and it’s a really great market for us.”
Looking ahead
The city of Houston is expecting six new hotels to open within the next 18 months, according to the Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau. Patel said the rise of hotels in Houston is a result of factors such as the nationwide popularity of the Texas Medical Center and the hosting of the Super Bowl in 2017.
Patel said Pearland’s hotel industry has benefited from the limited amount of hotel rooms in the Texas Medical Center over the last three years by housing its visitors.
“We’re trying to replace [the expected decrease in visitors] with something else,” he said. “There are a lot of hotels in Houston [that] are starting to [look for alternative options]. It is starting to become a rate war.”
Sinistore said she is optimistic the city’s tourist and visitor attractions will continue to increase occupancy numbers despite the new hotels and lodging options in Houston. She said the city’s proximity to William P. Hobby Airport will continue to attract overnight visitors as well as support visitors and tourists flowing from the George R. Brown Convention Center once its renovations are complete in fall 2016.
“I believe that visitors will stick [to] Pearland for our quality hotels and excellent services,” Sinistore said.
Patel said he expects to see an increase of visitors in Pearland during the weeks leading up to and following the 2017 Super Bowl because of the city’s proximity to Houston. However, he expects Pearland to see a decline in tourism in the months following the Super Bowl.
“After the Super Bowl is finished the true numbers will come in, and you’ll see that impact of slowdown,” he said. “There is so much inventory coming in [Houston], and it is going to take time to absorb the inventory.”
