LOCKPORT — John Percy, president and CEO of Destination Niagara USA, visited the Niagara County Legislature at its June 18 business meeting to present tourism numbers.
During his talk, Legislator Chris Robins (D) floated an idea to the tourism chief regarding the possibility of sports tourism in the county, specifically youth sports.
“For the last 15 years we’ve been doing either hockey or baseball all summer and winter long and the reality is that has been a big part of our travel budget and we go all over the place for those two sports,” Robins said, getting to the point that families from all over the world are doing the same thing. “What is the market for those kinds of sports?”
According to Percy, he is hopeful that the proposed Centennial Park will hold a facility that would be perfect for youth sports tournaments and draw the valuable demographic to Niagara Falls, and Niagara County’s sales tax coffers.
“They have hired Sport Facilities Network, which is a very legit company out of Florida that does consulting work,” Percy said. “I would love a year-round amateur youth sports facility that is indoors.”
Percy said that it’s easy to bring in folks on the Fourth of July and that his group has managed to bring in tourists between April and October, but November through March is more difficult.
“This Sports Facilities Network is looking at all of that. Volleyball, basketball, hockey. Everything,” he said.
Percy also said that the resources and amenities of Myrtle Beach and Niagara Falls are very similar, so he will be looking at that angle when work on the park begins and is open to other youth sports-centered projects that may surface outside Niagara Falls.
“We could have multiple facilities throughout. It doesn’t have to be one facility, it could be in a multitude of facilities throughout this county. People will move around. That’s one thing you will learn with parents and youth sports They will go anywhere and they are dedicated and the money that is being spent is astronomical,” Percy said.
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