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During the June 11 College Station City Council meeting, council members unanimously approved a partnership with Texas A&M for a new tourism initiative to attract visitors to the city.
What you need to know
The Destination Strategic Plan is Visit College Station’s initiative to partner with Texas A&M to create tourist attractions that are at a larger scope than athletic events held by the university.
The goals for the initiative include:
Visit College Station also said a main point to the plan is to situate Texas A&M as a premier location for academic conferences, along with creating a synergy between the university and the city.
Zooming in
Visit College Station has estimated the university and city has lost up to a potential $4 million in academic business because of a lack of conference hosting. Dan Finn, managing director with JLL Technologies, said the bureau is now looking to host up to eight annual conferences, which could generate up to 12,000 hotel room bookings.
Along with creating more hotel bookings with conferences, Visit College Station is looking at ways to keep families who are visiting students by making information more accessible and having a more personalized approach. Visit College Station estimates up to 5,000 more potential hotel bookings.
Another major focus is creating more leisure events to attract overnight guests. This will include developing an “anchor event” along with service packages for organizers, according to Finn.
The city currently has limited music venues, but the renovation of the Wolf Pen Creek amphitheater looks to correct this. Finn said Visit College Station estimates up to 12,000 more potential hotel bookings and a 25% to 40% increase in regional impact events overall.
Quotes of note
College Station Mayor John Nichols was appreciative of the plan and how Visit College Station is emphasizing the amount of work needing to be done within the first year of the initiative.
“These are the experts that know how to get this done and if it’s going to be done, not you and me,” he said. “We’re going to sit up here and analyze the outcomes and see where the difference really is.”
Council member Scott Shafer, who is also the executive director of campus and community enrichment at Texas A&M, said while departments at the university often are autonomous when it comes to conferences, they would not be shunned for going to the city.
“I’ve not ever seen a situation where [the department] would come down on me for getting help from the city to do something that would bring recognition to the university,” Shafer said.
The takeaway
The council voted to unanimously pass this initiative. The partnership is expected to last for the coming years in an effort to grow College Station’s tourism scene outside of the university’s athletic events.
This goal is also reflected in plans for the city’s Midtown area. As previously reported by Community Impact, the city and developers alike view an incoming ballpark complex to be a “massive economic engine.”
Also on the agenda
In addition, the council approved a new contract for mowing and landscaping services, next year’s annual action plan for community development funds and listened to a presentation on expanding the use of electric scooters and producing safety initiatives for its expansion.
