Tourism master plan completed
Great Falls Montana Tourism rolled out their strategic plan and tourism master plan on Jan. 19.
Tourism and their consultants began work on the plan in the late spring and the process included a series of public meetings, surveys and research.
In December 2022, City Commissioners unanimously approved $2.88 million in community ARPA, or federal COVID relief, grants.
Among those grants was $215,000 to the Great Falls Tourism Business Improvement District to develop a tourism master plan using assessments conducted by professional consultants to evaluate Great Falls’ current and potential status as a tourism destination.
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The plan will serve as the foundation for short and long term strategies for marketing and increasing the appeal of Great Falls to visitors, according to city documents during the ARPA grant award process.
Berkeley Young and Darren Rudloff, the consultants hired by Tourism, walked attendees through the plan highlights on Jan. 19.
The plan focuses on four objectives:
- visitor experience
- active-lifestyle outdoor recreation city
- hospitality industry workforce and related community issues
- community awareness and unity
The plan encourages Tourism and other entities to highlight the city as a “unique riverfront destination, unlike any other Montana city.”
The plan includes short, medium and long-term goals, but Young said planning beyond five years is challenging as conditions change.
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Young said communities should build something that attracts visitors but also enhances the life of residents, as both of those will enhance economic development.
He said that communities should focus on driving demand to existing assets, such as filling up existing hotel rooms, before building competition.
Young used Montana Expo Park as an example of an asset that has maintenance and improvement costs coming up, and the best way to support it is to keep driving traffic to the facility.
Young jokingly asked the group to promise “don’t ever say build it and they will come,” as he’s seen facilities nationwide that someone was passionate about, convinced people to fund, but it’s underutilized.
He encouraged attendees to do their research before building new facilities to ensure success.
Great Falls has plenty of meeting facilities, he said, but to be dominate in the state for major conference or events, the city needs a much larger convention center with at least 400 hotel rooms attached within walking distance to shops and restaurants.
The city is a basecamp for outdoor recreation and activity, he said, with a gateway airport there’s no reason the community can’t leverage those outdoor resources to attract people to dining and shopping.
Young suggested building upon the existing outdoor recreation strength of the community by enhancing the Great Falls experience. He said a priority should be developing and promoting outdoor retail businesses.
The hospitality industry workforce issue is a challenge, Young said, and developing that workforce should be a collaborative effort between Tourism and the economic development agencies.
Brad Talcott, a local developer, asked the consultants to further discuss their findings on visitor data.
“Young said they did visitor research through nationwide and local surveys. He said the biggest surprise was the city had visitors from all states, but then they realized the Air Force base is a draw.
Many of those visitors said they used the River’s Edge Trail, visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and other museums, and went shopping among other activities, the consultants said.
Young said the community should tie their brand to the river and follow the concept that people who are active outdoors by day are typically also active in the evening. He said a challenge with that is that many retailers close around 5 and that will take a culture shift.
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“Everything that you can do to connect the city to river and the river to the city,” Young said would support visitor traffic.
Sherrie Arey, NeighborWorks Great Falls director, said she hears that people come to the area to learn about Lewis and Clark history. She asked the consultants if they found here or in other areas with rich history things that the Great Falls community is missing in telling those stories.
Young said that interpretation work is never finished.
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“Don’t ever assume that people understand who you are,” he said.
Rebecca Engum, the Great Falls tourism director, said that her organization will continue talking about elements in the plan and developing strategies to implement them in collaboration with other local agencies, groups, businesses and individuals.
