City officials in Branson are exploring options to tap into the athletics tournament market with an eye on driving up tourism.
In February, the Branson Board of Alderman approved a $39,050 sports-market feasibility study to determine how it can better take advantage of opportunities, and the defunct Red Roof Mall may hold the key to future plans.
The 10-week study comes a year after Branson was hit with a tourism trifecta: a tornado, a heat wave and depressed visitor numbers. Ross Summers, president and CEO of the Branson/Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and Convention & Visitors Bureau, said Branson drew roughly 300,000 fewer tourists last year, hosting 7.3 million visitors in 2012.
“We’ve been involved in promoting the organized sports market for almost 10 years now,” Summers said. “It’s a market that we think fits our demographic very well. We are a family friendly market, and this is primarily a family activity.”
Summers said up to 2 percent of visitors travel to Branson each year for sporting events. According to a CVB survey last year of 273 adult visitors, the average visitor spent 3.4 nights in Branson, nearly 90 percent of sports visitors were families with children and 53 percent came from more than 100 miles away. More than one-third of visitors went to a music show, four in 10 said they visited Silver Dollar City, and more than half said they visited the Branson Landing.
“For us, it is an economic driver. It drives people to town who would otherwise not come to Branson,” Summers said.
Branson Parks and Recreation Director Cindy Shook said city fields have hosted the U.S. Specialty Sports Association Under 11 Baseball World Series the last six years, as well as USSSA youth softball championship events the last four years.
“Since 2005, we have hosted more than 200 state and regional tournaments and 12 national tournaments,” Shook said, estimating sporting events brought in $9 million to the city last year and revenue estimates are on par this year.
But Branson officials say the city is maxed out. The Parks Department operates four ballfields and two gymnasiums at the RecPlex, and a handful of school facilities are available for events. Shook said the city missed out on bringing to town a national senior softball tournament a couple of years ago because it couldn’t accommodate the group’s 100 teams.
“I know if we added four more fields and two more gyms, I could fill that tomorrow,” Shook said. “But if we took that times 10 or 20, like at the Red Roof Mall, would we still be successful? I don’t know. That’s why we need the feasibility study done – to tell us.”
Factory Merchants Mall, commonly called the Red Roof Mall, closed in Branson in late 2011. Simon Property Group bought out its lease in December 2011, giving control back to the city, which owns the 40-acre site.
Branson City Administrator Dean Kruithof said the study is not specifically designed to develop a plan to hold sporting events at the former mall. “We are not going into this with a preconceived notion,” he said. “What we are trying to do is look at what types of facilities would work best in Branson, and then ask the question, ‘Would this property work for this? Is this its highest and best use?’ If the answer is no, then we would look at other opportunities for Red Roof Mall.”
Tracy Kimberlin, Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau president, said the CVB has worked in tandem with the Greater Springfield Area Sports Commission to attract sports groups to town since the commission was formed in 1999.
On March 18–23, the city hosted the National Christian HomeSchool Basketball Championships, the largest annual sports event for the city, bringing roughly 330 teams to town and an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 visitors. He said the visitors, who filled at least 7,500 hotel rooms in the city, are estimated to have spent $4 million in Springfield. This is the fifth straight year Springfield has hosted the basketball tournament, according to
NCHCLive.com.
“If (NCHC) comes in here and says, ‘We need 33 gym floors,’ you need someone who knows how to round them up,” Kimberlin said of the nonprofit sports commission.
Lance Kettering, director of the Springfield sports commission, said adequate facilities are a top priority.
“You are not even going to get into a meeting with somebody if you don’t have the facilities they are looking for,” he said.
Kimberlin acknowledged a push by Branson to secure more sporting events would make the market more competitive.
“I think it is smart of them to be doing this. I wish they weren’t, but some of these events are so big that even if Branson books a big one, there’s a good chance we could get some business off of that – just like they get business off of HomeSchool,” Kimberlin said, adding he knows some visitors who came to town for last month’s basketball tournament stayed in Branson hotels.
Summers said Branson officials are acting more urgently with Southwest Airlines beginning service last month at the Branson Airport.
“Branson has a lot to offer these teams that a lot of areas don’t. When teams come here and are done with their games, they can take advantage of Silver Dollar City, Whitewater and museums, as well as the go-carts and so forth,” he said.
Kruithof said the study, conducted by Chicago-based C.H. Johnson Consulting Inc., should help the city see its way forward.
“We intrinsically think this is a good opportunity to increase tourism to Branson, but we want to be absolutely sure. We would hate to go on false assumptions and invest in facilities and find out that our investment didn’t pan out,” Kruithof said.
He said consultants should begin meeting with city officials in early April to discuss the study’s preliminary findings.
