While Heather takes a much deserved break this week, I decided to hijack the monthly blog with a Ed Hoffman style long winded tome on the state of tourism in Lake City. Bear with me.
As you know, tourism is the front door to an area’s economic development. It brings $16.6 billion dollars to Minnesota’s economy each year and generates over 180,000 jobs. Tourism keeps our community members’ taxes lower and improves their quality of life. At the Chamber, we go to work every day with this knowledge, and take our mission to make Lake City one of the top destinations in Minnesota seriously.
As we approach spring and embark on a new tourism season in Lake City, I think it’s a good opportunity to look back on 2024.
When I reflect on 2024, I feel a great sense of pride in this community. We began the year in intense planning for the 2024 Governor’s Fishing Opener. This project required nearly a year of logistical planning that required dozens of community members, city leadership and staff, service clubs, and statewide agencies including the DNR, Explore Minnesota, and the Governor’s Office to work together. By all accounts, the result was impeccable. Not only did the weather cooperate, but Lake City proved that we can produce an event with the utmost professionalism in a place of unmatched hospitality and natural beauty. Regional media responded, and our community received a flood of attention.
Here a few things that blew me away about the event…
– The 2024 Governor’s Fishing Opener in Lake City, MN, netted 575 million media impressions and an estimated audience reach of over 25 million across print, broadcast, radio, and online.
– Lake City reeled in a record 158,471 estimated social media reach from the two social media influencers we partnered with for the event, generating over 7,000 social engagements on posts.
– Media Row was booming, with over 28 media outlets attending in person to interview the Governor, Explore Minnesota, the DNR, Visit Lake City and Chamber staff, and other Lake City community members.
– GFO Social Media Highlights: Potential Impressions: 24,421,460 Total Engagements: 22,967 Volume of Posts: 4,704
– Governor Tim Walz said multiple times, in various circumstances, that the 2024 Governor’s Fishing Opener was the best he’d ever attended!
Beyond the fishing opener, we saw a number of other wins. 2024 saw record lodging tax revenue come in. This is probably the best indicator we have of tourism traffic. Not only did Lake City mark the 3rd record breaking year in a row, it smashed our numbers from 2023. Q4 was by far the best Q4 on record, This alone is very welcome news because it shows tourism growth during the shoulder season and winter – a priority of Visit Lake City’s work. Visit Lake City also received record amount of grant dollars in 2024. These dollars allowed us to purchase a full page ad in the official Explore Minnesota Visitor Guide, help fund the Governor’s Fishing Opener, install ADA compliant functions to our website, print new birding and fishing guides, and even take out a series of television and website ads on KAAL Channel 6. The grant will continue to work for us into 2025 by funding digital advertising focusing on angling opportunities in Lake City.
We continued to update and expand our website in 2024 to encourage user activity, including building new landing pages for our digital ads, adding a plethora of new fishing information to capitalize on the 2024 Governor’s Fishing Opener, and a creating a page dedicated to expounding on the rich history of Ralph Samuelson and water skiing in Lake City. In 2024 we saw 73,000 people visit our site, an increase of 8.4% over 2023.
Visit Lake City also continued to advertise aggressively in the digital space. With partners like Sievers Creative, Media One, Star Tribune, Greenspring Media, Orange 142, Strike Social, and Vision Design Group, we collaboratively created a robust marketing strategy that includes digital display (ie. banner ads), paid social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok), content marketing, and email blasts. We also kept a regular schedule of social media posting. We even leveraged AI to find ideal demographics for our ads.
While we continued to grow our focus on digital advertising, we remained committed to targeted print ads and content marketing in publications that we felt reached those most likely to travel to Lake City. In 2024 we maintained a monthly 2 page spread in Rochester Visitor Magazine, and placed ads in Today, Minnesota Monthly, and MSP Magazine. We also advertised in Explore Minnesota’s official state guide, and took out a full page ad in Experience Rochester, its official guidebook.
Other fun opportunities we took advantage of in 2024 included throwing out the first pitch at a St. Paul Saints game and spending time on KFAN radio extolling Lake City’s summer events and our reputation as a great vacation destination. We also dipped our toes into the world of podcasts with a feature on Explore Minnesota More where we had a conversation with the DNR commissioner Sarah Strommen and the Explore Minnesota Executive Director Elizabeth Bennett McGinty.
Lake City continues to engage with regional and statewide agencies to create strategies for larger marketing projects and to promote Lake City’s place therein. I continued in my roles with the Southern Minnesota Tourism Association’s Executive Committee and as a Governor appointee on the Explore Minnesota Tourism Council and its Outdoor Recreation Committee. We attended the Explore Minnesota Annual Conference as well as the two SMTA’s in-person conferences of 2024, held in Fairbault and Austin, Minnesota, respectively. Though I’m not one for accolades, I was proud to be nominated for the Emerging Leader award at last year’s State Tourism Conference.
While there were lots of positives in 2024, we cannot sugar coat the fact that it was a difficult year to navigate. We began with a winter drought that stymied our recreation economy and saw the cancellation of numerous winter events. Summer saw an unprecedented June and July flooding of the Mississippi that forced the cancellation of water activities at Water Ski Days, and put a huge damper on our all-important boating season and its related tourism economy. Inflation, while slowing, continued to hammer our small businesses and made potential travelers think harder about vacation expenses. However, Lake City made it through the proverbial storm of 2024, and we have lots of reasons to be optimistic for 2025.
Winter recreational activities have been back, and odds of another summer flood hitting us are low. While time will tell about inflation, tourism professionals at the state level are predicting another uptick in people getting out and exploring our great state. The same professionals are expecting that this is the year statewide tourism numbers surpass pre-pandemic levels. Lake City has a little secret though, we’ve been back for 2+ years, outperforming statewide trends and pushing forward at an above industry-average clip!
Visit Lake City has its eyes on new projects in 2025, including the design and publication of a new 2-year visitor guide, new collaborations with regional partners, and staying on the cutting edge of digital advertising. We approach this new year with optimism, and thank our incredible board members at Visit Lake City and the Chamber of Commerce, partners at the city and state, volunteers, sponsors, local businesses, and all who keep up the work of promoting our community and welcoming visitors to our beautiful spot on Lake Pepin.
