Sports Visitors Beating the Competition

A day after Sarasota County Commissioners approved a design change for phase one and two of the Nathan Benderson Rowing Park to attract international rowers to Sarasota, commissioners received a report about the positive impact of sports tourism in the county.

On Wednesday at a joint meeting of the BCC and the Tourism Development Council, numbers were presented that showed Sarasota County sporting events had more than $34 million of economic impact in fiscal year 2011. That is a 49 percent increase over last year.

“Sports visitors of all kinds represent 9.3 percent of visitors,” said Sarasota County Convention and Visitors Bureau president Virginia Haley.

Those sports visitor numbers do not include the number of tourists that came to Sarasota for spring training, which Haley said means that the 9.3 percent is actually much higher. 

“This doesn’t include the baseball, which is amazing to me,” said TDC member Bob Waechter.

Haley said increasing sports tourism has helped Sarasota County grow its tourism numbers faster than other areas in Florida.

“Our sports visitors are generally first-timers, which can represent market share,” Haley said.

Despite previous notions, sports visitors generally have more money than non-sports tourists. “In general people had in the past viewed the sports business at the lower end market,” she said.

Numbers gathered by Haley and the SCVB, however, show that sports visitors have a higher median income ($125,000) than other Sarasota tourists ($109,000). On average, sports visitors also stay longer, bring more people and spend more money while they are in Sarasota than other visitors.

According to county documents, sports visitors filled more than 38,000 hotel rooms in fiscal year 2011. That is a 35 percent increase since last year.

Haley said the SCVB is not going to let the momentum slide. It will continue to push for sporting events in Sarasota.

Ten percent of sports tourism promotion dollars are allocated for spring training. Another 10 percent is for nature and aquatics, Haley said.

The marketing budget for sports has grown every year, Haley said, which is now up to $172,000.

“The fastest growing segment in Sarasota County is sports tourism,” said county commissioner Joe Barbetta. “That’s where we are going to start seeing the increased revenue.”