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Friday, June 08, 2018

Discover LV, By the Numbers

Discover Lehigh Valley, our local tourism bureau, has been around since 1984. It has a $3 million budget and 13 full-time employees. You might ask yourself, "What good is it?" Is it all just fluff? Not according to Mike Stershic, who is President at Discover LV until the end of the year. In a presentation to Northampton County Council last night, he made an effective case for tourism. Here's a condensed version of his presentation, by the numbers:
  • In 2016, visitors spend $2.2 billion in the Lehigh Valley. They spent more on recreation (28%) than all other regions in the state.
  • The tourism industry employs 24,750 people valleywide, generating $480 million in federal, state and local taxes.
  • The overall occupancy rate at hotels in 2017 was 70.7%. Over 1.5 million room nights were sold, which translates to 4,186 people in our hotels nightly.
  • 59% of LV visitors have been here four or more times within the past two years.  
  • The Lehigh Valley accounts for 5.2% of visitor spending in the state, up from 2.46% when DiscoverLV was first formed.
Mike Stershic, long-time president of DiscoverLV, called tourism a "first date" for likely investors. He also shared a statement he heard from Maura Gast of the Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau:
If you build a place where people want to visit, you'll build a place where people want to live. If you build a place where people want to live, you'll build a place where people want to work. And, if you build a place where people want to work, you'll build a place where business has to be. If you build a place where business has to be, you'll build a place where people have to visit.
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 8, 2018 at 7:38 AM

    They seem to be primarily focusednon A B E. The perception is they spend most of their dollars on Southside Bethlehem. Maybe that is a misperception. It does seem odd that on their notable persons page they reference the hometown of City notables but do not reference the hometowns of non City notables. That seems telling. They are primary benefactor of Hotel tax.

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  2. Innocent BystanderJune 8, 2018 at 5:58 PM

    Look at Easton,Pennsylvania. People come to things like Baconfeest -and end up moving here. $1,300 an month 1 bedroom. ,but clean and nice at the mill . My real estate has zoomed iin the past two years . If I was a Land lord I’d throw out my bottom feeder tenants and get with clean and presentable ,Evan West Ward . I agree LV doing well .

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  3. AnonymousJune 10, 2018 at 5:17 PM

    What many millennials need is an affordable rent. The rents are set up for section eight bottom feeders and allegedly well off "professionals".

    where are the $600-800 a month rents? Many of the places out there are dumps that zoning tends to ignore.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJune 11, 2018 at 12:52 PM

    Remember when the blog bellowed on about how the hockey arena would be a giant bust?

    Good times.

    ReplyDelete

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