This calendar week is National Travel and Tourism Week (NTTW), an annual celebration of the contributions of the U.Due south. travel industry and its touch on local economies.

"On behalf of our Board of Directors and squad, nosotros look frontward to celebrating and sharing the powerful story of tourism," Dave Herrell, President and CEO, Visit Quad Cities, said in a Sun release kicking off the week. "Tourism continues to move our regional destination forward in and then many ways and supports local jobs. Its positive impact on our economic prosperity, community programming, and make positioning is vital to the future of the Quad Cities. Tourism and the not-resident revenues — including the significant tax acquirement it creates for the public sector — directly benefits quality of life and quality of place for our residents.

Visit Quad Cities launched the "QC, That's Where" promotional entrada last fall.

"This week is about shedding lite on the positives of what information technology ways to all of us locally and nationally," he said. "Visit Quad Cities is proud to be a shared and common customs value for the region and volition continue to atomic number 82 tourism evolution, destination marketing, and visitor experience as we compete for market place share and worldwide attention."

Dave Herrell is president/CEO of Visit Quad Cities.

Visitors and non-resident revenues generate pregnant economical benefits to households, businesses, and the public sector. These impacts from visitation result from overnight stays, 24-hour interval trippers, meetings, conventions, sporting events, and group tours. In 2020, per the U.S. Travel Association and Tourism Economics, visitor spending in the QC generated over $958 1000000.

Through a partnership with Datafy, Visit Quad Cities can rail overnight visitation and day-trippers coming into the Quad Cities regional destination. Datafy uses mobile devices and geofencing to gather data on each visitor 16 years or older.

Using Datafy, Visit Quad Cities since February 2018 has tracked two.6+ one thousand thousand unique visitors who fabricated thirteen.6+ one thousand thousand trips to the QC and spent 45+ one thousand thousand visitor days, for an average trip length of three.3 days, the release said. The top cities generating the most visitation were Chicago, Cedar Rapids, Omaha, Dubuque, Des Moines, and Minneapolis.

Visit Quad Cities — which last fall unveiled a new "QC, That's Where" promotional make campaign — reported positive 2020 economic numbers, despite the pandemic.

In addition to working with Datafy, Visit Quad Cities has launched curated destination experiences with Bandwango, a travel technology-based platform designed to deliver admission to places and experiences digitally.

Visit Quad Cities uses Bandwango for the QC Java Trail, QC Family Pass, and QC Advanced Pro. In addition to the QC Ale Trail, these tourism products showcase our authentic and locally curated experiences.

Hosting events boosts economic impact

Visit Quad Cities is constantly looking at opportunities that drive prosperity, value, and quality of place. The QCs hosts hundreds of meetings, conferences, trade shows, military and family reunions, festivals and special events, and sports events of all sizes every year. These events generate a positive economic bear upon through non-resident revenues and help to employ viii,000 local residents in the tourism and hospitality industry.

Sports tourism continues to generate a stiff economic impact leading to bookings in the pandemic recovery phase, and growth is projected in this market for some time to come, the VQC release said. In add-on, the river prowl manufacture will highly-actuate the world-renowned Mississippi River, our global asset.

The QC has 54 stops from national prowl line companies this yr — with Viking Cruise Lines embarking on the Mississippi for the first time this summer, joining American Queen Voyages and American Prowl Lines.

Visit Quad Cities is seeing an increase in requests for proposals from meeting planners this yr, giving a positive outlook for the return of meetings, conferences, and conventions. This uptick similarly compares with the data U.S. Travel Association and Destination International is sharing regarding the meetings industry recovery.

Some of the upcoming events scheduled in 2022 include:

  • NAIA Men's Golf Championship, May 17-20 – TPC Deere Run
  • Iowa Wastewater Briefing, June vii-9 – RiverCenter
  • Illinois Land Cowboy Activeness Championship, July 14-17 – Holiday Inn Limited, Moline
  • 2022 Antiquarian Automobile Club of America National Encounter, August eleven-14 – Bend XPO
  • ISC World Tournament, August 14-20 – Greenvalley Sports Complex
  • USS Leary Navy Reunion, September 7-10 – Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center – Rock Island
  • PDGA Tim Selinske U.S. Masters Championships, September 7-eleven – QC disc golf game courses
  • Tea Leaf Society International National Convention, September 7-11 – Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center – Rock Island
  • Fundamental Regional CrossFit Competition, September 16-18 – Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds
  • Iowa Recycling & Solid Waste product Management Briefing, October 3-4 – Quad-City Waterfront Convention Heart
  • American Cue Sports Iowa Land Pool Championships, Oct 17-23 – RiverCenter
  • Lutherans for Life National Briefing, October 18-22 – Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center – Rock Isle

Celebrated annually the first full calendar week in May, the NTTW was created by Congress in 1983 to elevate the economic power of travel in the U.S. For more information, visit ustravel.org/NTTW.