Visit Rapid City and local lodging could stimulate local economy due to booking a series of conference meetings

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - In honor of Global Meetings Industry Day on April 11th ... Visit Rapid City and the local hospitality industry are joining forces to encourage residents to host their meetings in town.

Last year ... these types of meetings provided the local economy with more than 3 million dollars.

Bringing meetings to town could serve as an important contributor to stimulate the local economy and help with tourism.

According to Visit Rapid City, in the U.S. alone, more than $100 billion was spent on meetings and other related events in 2023.

Resulting in approximately 600,000 American jobs receiving support from the meetings industry. Helping aid local economies and encouraging meetings attendees to revisit conference destinations and spend their money on hotels, restaurants, leisure, and other businesses.

Last year, Visit Rapid City played a part in this ... helping to bring in more than 40 conference meetings to town, and that led to more than 5,400 room nights booked.

In 2024, the organization will look to build on those numbers as their sales could add to the projected 19,000 room nights booked in total for the year. which would add an additional $11 million.

Visit Rapid City Sales Director Tyson Steiger (ST-I-GUR) says meetings can have a sizeable impact on a community, and not just from an economic standpoint.

“Meetings are extremely vital to any community’s well-being. It does bring in economic impact. It does a lot for job opportunities. It exposes a different demographic of people to a community that may have never had the opportunity to come visit.”

The company helped bring in large professional meetings to the Monument, Holiday Inn, and the Best Western Ramkota Hotel this year. The series of meetings are scheduled for May through November. They include the National Indian Health Board, Women on Wheels, and Society of Commercial Seed.

Best Western General Manager Wade Lampert says it was beneficial working with Visit Rapid City to secure those meetings.

“Great to work with Visit Rapid City to help fill that. Whether it’s a local group bringing in, you know, state-wide, region, or like I said, international you know meetings. It’s just, we like to show off our beautiful area.”

With all these meetings coming, Visit Rapid City and hotels around the area will look to capitalize and make the area a mainstay for local and out-of-town professional gatherings.

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