A year later, Polk tourism buoyed by the magic of sports

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Just like the sun dawning on a new day, there is a specific magic in the air as the Detroit Tigers get started Spring Training.

The air seems just a little fresher, the sun just a little warmer, the mustard on the hot dog just a little tangier. For the players and the teams, the entire year is new and brings with it endless possibilities.

Such may be the magic of sports.

And we could all use just a little magic, couldn’t we?

It was nearly this past year when the coronavirus outbreak shut down the NBA and landed Hollywood superstar Tom Hanks and his wife within an Australian hospital. Today, it provides taken the lives greater than half a million Americans. The deadly pandemic, unlike anything that offers struck in america inside our lifetimes, also wreaked havoc on most bank accounts, from the world stage to your kitchen table.

In Florida, the virus is a body blow to the tourism industry as visitors trickle into theme parks and, for the most part, avoid densely packed destinations. Even though it might be crass of me to state that Polk County provides been spared, in truth, we’ve fared much better than most of our opponents - because of sports.

Aiming to diversify its monetary portfolio, the Central Florida Creation Council and Polk County hired me to develop a new tourism department, and thus, nearly 29 years back, Polk County Tourism and Sporting activities Marketing was born. At that moment, Polk was enduring tough economic times. The citrus industry was under attack from overseas growers along with the weather, as the phosphate industry’s slump, which had started in the 80s, continuing. Led at that time by banker Ron Morrow and property and development expert Gene Engle, PCTSM developed what will be the well balanced portfolio that carries on today. Segmenting our strategy into tourism, sports and meetings/conventions, this three-pronged approach has allowed us the overall flexibility to change with the times while limiting market change vulnerability.

Tourism and meetings/conventions were, prior to the pandemic, our fastest growing segments. And tourism is, basically, our greatest segment. Why shouldn’t it be, when we have not merely the LEGOLAND Florida Resort, but likewise Bok Tower Gardens, Safari Wilderness and sunlight ‘n FUN Aerospace Expo. But as a result of the pandemic, both segments ground to a virtual halt.

But sport remains. 

Now four months into fiscal year 20-21, Polk County is enjoying among its best sporting-event years on the subject of record. Our fields have already been brimming with events, whether it's the United Flag Football National Championship that earned 16,000 participants and spectators over the Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend, the Prospectwire Central Florida Showcase in October that brought in 60 teams during a three-day period in October, or the NSA Youth Fastpitch States, a softball event that drew 100 teams to Polk County in mid-December.

And, thanks to the new AdventHealth Fieldhouse and Convention Center found in Winter Haven, we’ve hosted including the Youth Basketball of America Boys National Basketball Tournament, the Mach 3 AAU-Sanctioned Orange Blossom Bash Volleyball Tournament and even the American Cornhole League Superhole National Kick-Off Battle Tournament that was featured about ESPN2 prior to the Super Bowl.

Prior to the pandemic, the tourism industry was acutely aware that sports were recession tolerant. We can now put pandemic resistant as well.

To greatly help mitigate virus-related concerns, staff created and implemented what is becoming an industry-leading safety program. The machine includes input from USA Olympic Committee governing bodies in addition to a plethora of national, status and local organizations. Furthermore, PCTSM secured and offered safety supplies and apparatus, from personal protection tools to hand rinse stations, signage to sprayers.

In total, the program has allowed PCTSM to offer what many look are a number of the safest sports events possible. We’ve aimed never to only meet up with the industry standard for cleanliness, but go beyond it. We’ve reinforced social distancing and masks, pumped out gallons of hand sanitizer and researched and refined our efforts numerous times.

Our study found one thread: The general public will only happen to be places they feel safe and sound. Therefore we launched the “Come to be 5weet” campaign that targets the five things we can all carry out - social distance, mask up, rinse hands, stay home when you are sick and stick to CDC guidelines - to do our part to maintain Polk County healthy. We’ve also modernized our website, added an app to your arsenal of social media marketing weapons, and developed the Polk Savings Pass to help retailers and restauranteurs during our prolonged recovery.

My bosses would put a net above my head if I told them everything was rainbows and unicorns. We’ve got a whole lot of work before us as a business to return from what now appears like halcyon days. Many businesses may never recover from the pandemic-induced recession. On top of that, the increased loss of tax revenue throughout the state may cause ripples that will tell you everything this talk about does for the arriving years.

But we at PCTSM believe that, just like the Tigers acquiring the field at Publix Discipline at Joker Marchant Stadium, our collective spring, our virtual rebirth out of this longer, gray pandemic, is almost here.

Hence we’ll try our better to wait patiently to come back to normalcy, and with it, tourism will flow once more into Polk County, “Florida’s Sweetest Spot.”
Source: https://www.theledger.com

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