‘Hope on the horizon,’ officers optimistic about summer time tourism

CLEAR WATER (WQOW) – Many sectors of the tourism industry have been hard hit during the pandemic, including the hotel business, but things are starting to improve.

The Wisconsin Department of Tourism reports that the tourism industry created more than 4,600 jobs in 2019 and visitors spent $ 259 million in Eau Claire County alone, but things changed quickly over the following year.

“We definitely took a hard blow. We lost, I think over 3,000 local hospitality jobs. It was a brutal blow,” said Benny Anderson, General Manager of Visit Eau Claire.

Eau Claire’s municipal finance department reports that the city levied $ 2,016,473 in hotel / motel room taxes in 2019, but it dropped to $ 1,126,308 in 2020.

This means that fewer people have booked rooms.

“At the height of the pandemic, we sat 50 to 60 percent full on a weekend,” said Billy Bandli, General Manager of Action City at the Metropolis Resort in Eau Claire. “So we have 107 hotel rooms and on an average weekend we would have 60 rooms per weekend per night. That is quite a long way from where we normally are.”

However, Bandli said Metropolis is looking pretty good so far.

“I am very optimistic, especially in the last few months and the good news that comes with the introduction of vaccines,” said Bandli. “We’ve already received a lot of calls this summer looking to the future. We’re seeing people coming out again, so we assume they’ll be sold out or almost sold out on weekends and traffic will come on weekdays too.”

Also, Visit Eau Claire officials said there are several in-person events to look forward to this summer.

“We had good conversations with the Marathon and Country Jam, Farm Tech Days and the Blue Ox Music Festival. All of these big companies. There is great hope that we are open and ready for business and enjoyment.” . ” half normal summer, “said Anderson.

When it comes to collecting property taxes, Visit Eau Claire said that due to the ongoing effects of COVID, we may not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023.

City officials said 30% of the room tax Fund Fund Hobbs Ice Arena, Fairfax Pool and City Parks.

The other 70% go to Visit Eau Claire, which helps to promote tourism in our region.

December 2020 room tax