Tourism in northwest Ohio is a multimillion-dollar industry, local leaders said Tuesday.
At Destination Toledo’s annual conference on tourism, Rich Nachazel, president of Destination Toledo, said the industry is responsible for bringing $1.8 million into Lucas County and for 20,000 jobs with wages totaling $421.8 million. Tourism in northwest Ohio brought in $5.6 billion in sales, $1.3 billion in wages, and $720 million in taxes.
Ongoing investment in the area, particularly in the Warehouse District with the recent opening of Hensville, is part of the downtown success story, said Joe Napoli, president and chief executive officer of the Toledo Mud Hens and Toledo Walleye.
The two teams draw 750,000 to 800,000 people to downtown every year, Mr. Napoli said. With concerts and other events at the Huntington Center, the visitor estimate is closer to 1 million people. Because the area is growing, musical acts who would have skipped over Toledo as a tour stop are now booking shows here, Mr. Napoli said.
Already, more than 30 weddings have been booked in Hensville, Mr. Napoli said. Within the next month, he said, Hensville will announce a new tenant at the Fleetwood Building, which is where the Tuesday afternoon conference was hosted.
Mary Cusick, director of TourismOhio, told the crowded room about the state’s new tourism campaign that began in March.
Through research, the team responsible for the campaign found people would be most likely to connect to Ohio — and want to visit — by being offered memory-making outings. A 30-second commercial, previously aired in the Toledo area, showed family, friends, and young people enjoying one another with Ohio destinations — Playhouse Square in Cleveland, vineyards, Lake Erie shoreline, and Cedar Point — in the background.
Steve Madewell, director of Metroparks of the Toledo Area, noted progress in the park system. Middlegrounds, a park under construction on the Maumee River’s west bank near downtown Toledo, is set to open this year. Mr. Madewell said the park system is on track this year to surpass 2015’s 4 million visitors.
Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.
First Published May 4, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
