Austin often is a "mystery tour" destination, Austin Area Convention and Visitors Bureau director Jeanne Sheehan told the Austin City Council Monday.

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

Austin often is a "mystery tour" destination, Austin Area Convention and Visitors Bureau director Jeanne Sheehan told the Austin City Council Monday.

"This is a non-traditional destination," Sheehan said. "We are not the Amana Colonies or the Mall of America. To be honest, our SPAMTOWN USA theme intrigues them. That’s fine – it meant we had a record-breaking number of group tours last year."

A total of 58 groups – triple the 1998 figure – visited Austin in 1999. The CVB director reported those groups brought a total of 1,512 people to Austin. In addition, meetings and conventions brought in 3,001 people, family and class reunions brought 1,160, sports tournaments attracted 4,769 fans and participants, and special events – like the Mower County Fair, the National Barrow Show and the SPAMTOWN USA Festival – brought in 36,350.

All in all, the tourism and convention industry impacted the city of Austin to the tune of $7.5 million. That figure, Sheehan said, probably was a conservative one, as it was calculated using a 1996 travel industry figure. That figure is multiplied times the number of people and the number of days they stayed.

Sheehan credited CVB group tour administrator Chuck Keller with the rise in the number of tour groups.

"Chuck really worked on nurturing group tours and we were more pro-active than ever before," Sheehan said.

With the rise in visitors, there also was a rise of 9 percent in the lodging taxes paid by hotels to the city of Austin. That was good news for the CVB, which gets 95 percent of the taxes to pay for its budget. The more overnight visitors, the more the CVB can do the next year to promote Austin and the greater the economic impact those visitors will have.

Finally, Sheehan noted that the CVB’s promotional Austin video is finished and will be available soon on loan to groups such as service clubs that are interested in bringing conventions or other organizations to Austin.

"We’d certainly be happy to help anyone trying to get people to come to Austin," Sheehan said. Interested people can contact Sheehan or Keller at the CVB at 437-4563.