You have to park at the ramp because the parking lots are full, and we just love it. I just love it, all these people coming to town. You’re doing a great job.”

Councilmember Lisa Leifeld

The tourism bureau is funded through a 3 percent lodging tax on top of the price for city hotel rooms. Of that tax, 95 percent is for tourism efforts.

Hastings Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau President Kristy Barse went over successful initiatives to attract visitors to the community in the last year with the Hastings City Council at its meeting Monday, Oct. 16.

“There’s a vibe. There’s definitely a vibe,” she said of Hastings becoming a must visit destination.

The tourism bureau is funded through a 3 percent lodging tax on top of the price for city hotel rooms. Of that tax, 95 percent is for tourism efforts.

“The funds can be used for marketing and promotional pieces only, and I bring that up because oftentimes we get questions about tourism assets, like capital things, sports facilities or monuments, along those lines,” Barse said. “It’s pretty clear in the state statute that the tourism funds are only to be used for marketing and promotion.”

From a historic perspective, Barse said Hastings started to see an “uptick” in visitors in 2017. However, the pandemic caused the brakes to be pushed on that.

“The tourism industry took a plunge, as you can imagine,” she said.

In 2017-18, the lodging tax brought in $53,000, rising to $56,000 the following year. That dipped to $44,000 thanks to COVID in 2019-20 and $48,000 the next year. In 2021-22, the tax collection jumped to $66,000. This past year, it hit the high-water market at $71,000.

“It’s always exciting for the nerd in me to see the numbers attached to the vibe,” Barse said.

The tourism bureau also tracks the number of promotional pieces that are distributed, and it tracks leads that come in through a program with AAA.

“Those are destination marketing requests. That’s the requests we get from some of our huge tourism assets like the Mall of America and our highway information centers,” she said.

The tourism bureau also has seen a dramatic increase in requests from its website for information about visiting Hastings.

“Last year we had just under 90 and this year we’ve had over 600 requests through our website for visitors guides,” she said.

The bureau also runs targeted campaigns in spring, fall and winter.

“One thing that I wanted to point out this year that we noticed we’ve seen an increase in two specific trends. We have our weekend trip visitors, which is a lot of younger families, and they’re coming typically for the day. And then we’re seeing more midweek traffic and a huge increase in recently retired couples and couples that are traveling friends, and they want different experiences,” said Barse.

She said the bureau targeted the Rochester area for 60 and over visitors, and the Twin Cities for weekend travelers.

“Especially during our apple season,” she said. “This was the highest view rate that we have ever had on our online campaign.”

She said feedback from businesses prove the campaigns work.

“We try to keep a pulse with our tourism-based businesses if they’re tracking where their customers are coming fun. It was really fun to hear. Right after the midweek traveler email went out, a lot of our downtown businesses said that they saw visitors from Rochester, which is exactly where we are targeting,” said Barse.

In the last year, the bureau piloted a program to get bus tours. Tourism staffer Dave Youngren put together itineraries and lunch recommendations for the trips.

“At a certain point of their visit, he stepped on the bus. He would step on the bus and provide historic tours,” said Barse. “This was really well received. Most of our buses averaged 50 visitors, and they stayed an average of an hour longer than what he had planned. He got rave reviews for these.”

Promoting the “day with Dave” could bring even more visitors.

“I think it’s an opportunity for us. I really think this is a market that went away during COVID-19, and we’re starting to see an increase in it now. I think we can be ahead of that trend and help them plan these itineraries. This can become a two, three-day type of excursion where we could partner with other communities.”

The bureau will also focus its marketing efforts to Wisconsin and Iowa as well.

Councilmembers shared Barse’s enthusiasm.

“I love to see the new innovative ways of doing things like ‘step on’ tours to promote our local businesses. I think that’s a great new place to start and grow,” said Angie Haus.

“It’s great when you go downtown, and you don’t know anyone. That’s just the best part. You have to park at the ramp because the parking lots are full, and we just love it,” said Lisa Leifeld. “I just love it, all these people coming to town. You’re doing a great job.”

Councilmember Dave Pemble inquired about getting the riverboat tours to stop downtown.

Barse said there was a pilot stop in July with Viking Tours.

“I think it went really well. I think the challenge was trying to find something that worked within their budget and was a benefit to our downtown businesses as well,” Barse said. “That doesn’t mean that the opportunity isn’t still there. We want to build on it. That is something that we were working with The Confluence Hotel team on.”

“Keep working at it,” said Pemble. “I think there’s a possibility there.”